


The Boy You Love, Part I/III

by Persephone



Series: Willing to Take the Risk [24]
Category: Valentine's Day (2010)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Confessions, House Party, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 13:10:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18223583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone/pseuds/Persephone
Summary: If you're getting married, don't do this. Holden Wilson tells his story.Or:Hard to Forgetfrom a mirror image.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This Part is the last before the Wedding. I'm feeling all sorts of things.
> 
> Also, this Part has chapter titles, something I've never done, but it was demanding it. Don't ask me why.

Four years ago when Kara had first handed him Holden’s business card, passed on from Felicia Mallory, the Hollywood agent who still regularly poked Kara about getting him into reality TV, Kara hadn’t queried much about why he was getting the card. It wasn’t that unusual that following a fundraiser, a rich guy with money to burn would reach out to an NFL player. Still, curiosity had her asking what Holden Wilson wanted. Probably, she’d been expecting to add yet another layer to his offseason schedule and had wanted to stay on top of it. 

He, of course, had known why. 

Since his college football days he had attracted the interest of men with power. Power of the kind to make or break a career, with manner in which such men choose to reveal themselves as gay, bisexual, or just plain dominating, almost always an unpleasant surprise. The player’s interest, much less sexual orientation, was usually irrelevant—theirs was the power and the need and that was all that mattered. 

When it had first happened to him he’d gone into full blown panic believing he had given out a vibe that in one unexpected encounter had destroyed his fledgling career. In that colossal moment it was astonishing what had gone through his mind, and how quickly: he had failed his parents, had wasted their heavy financial investment in his future; he’d failed his hometown, blown their hopes and dreams in him; but most devastating of all, he’d failed his sister, who’d held so strong against everyone and everything, particularly their parents’ prejudices against homosexuality, to prove that they were no different from the rest of the world. She’d wanted him too to be strong and to succeed. But in that lightening moment, in that intimidating and certainly most expensive restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin, with the hand of a top NFL scout on his thigh under the table, he’d known he’d failed them all. That in awful spite of all his efforts to hide it, to be in control of it and make it invisible, he’d been discovered. _Terror_ didn’t quite cover it.

No one else at the table said anything. No one even appeared to notice. But the other scout and college player had to have suspected. Both had to have seen his nineteen year old face break apart in shock. Flushed and shaking, staring in shattered fright, he’d pinned his eyes on the other scout seated across from him, who’d also brought his favored potential NFL recruit from a nearby small college. But neither scout nor player had acknowledged his distress.

No one talked about the things that went on, then or now. And maybe that incident had been the reason he’d deferred going straight from sophomore year into the NFL. Each player decided for himself what he could withstand—whether he could do anything at all in exchange for a future in professional football. Many did. It depended, he knew, on your perceived level of talent. If scouts considered you indispensable, they came back no matter what you didn’t allow.

From simple paralysis he’d failed to respond to that scout in the restaurant. At that age and coming from his sheltered life, had he done anything at all, the scene would have been nothing but a disaster. Later, the scout had simply taken him for naive and had only been too happy to break him in. And when he’d fled and kept his distance, refusing to leave college, only too happy to keep tabs on him for the league. Had that scout been his only option into the NFL, he didn’t know whether he would have ever had a career. The night he was recruited into the Vikings, he took his parents with him to the dinner.

The scout had continued working for the NFL for years, retiring well into his career and long after the Vikings had traded him to the Chargers. By then, even having accumulated some star power of his own, he’d spent years learning the hard way that Madison had merely been an introduction. A decade and a half into the league, he’d become proficient in categorizing socially powerful men and what they wanted you to understand about yourself—be they reporters, coaches, team owners, boosters, or their equally rich and powerful friends. And it was simply that in whatever sphere you found yourself with them, they owned you. That was fact he had learned up-close and often. And every step of the way, he had refused to fall into those traps. He had done everything within his own limited power to stay out of their way and to not get used.

So that on receiving Holden Wilson’s business card, he’d tossed it.

As often as he told Holden how it had been seeing him that first time, he was sure Holden thought he was exaggerating. He’d been badly infatuated before. Likewise he’d felt instant, deep attraction. Even that airy sweetness of teenage love that made everything feel right with the world, he’d felt. But never had he experienced a total detachment of himself, the tremendous effort to simply set himself back on the ground. He could never have afforded to. So what were his feet doing off the ground? Where was the ground, even?

Of course the whole world knew the name of Alastair Wilson. In fact the only thing the Wilsons didn’t seem to have was a university named after them. But he hadn’t known that the family had a gay son. Not that it would have meant much to him beyond idle curiosity, since not being out, he couldn’t have helped with their philanthropy. Nevertheless when he first saw him, Alastair Wilson’s evidently gay son, kissing the cheeks of one or two of the gay male guests as he made his way across the room, his world stopped. For no reason whatsoever, the party around him began spinning like a color wheel, whirling slowly, only the two of them at a standstill. When he heard the excited whispers of guests around him, someone naming the newcomer and others craning to look, his surprise had only emerged as background noise. By the time Holden had reached their side of the room and introductions were made, he had inexplicably fallen in love.

He’d mentioned that when it came to men like this he’d lived his adult life by a simple rule, right? No men with power. Much less bottomless resources of it. But what a struggle that next hour was. And it hadn’t helped—or maybe it had—that Holden Wilson seemed about as interested in him as an audience member at the most boring academic lecture of all time. 

Yet to him it had been as if with each polite smile, each fractional eye contact, Holden had been showering him with beautiful love and a very special type of attention he had never experienced. It was _wild._ And his mind had run riot.

God, had it raised hell. Soared right into a sky of possibilities. Imagine if he could have this, he’d thought, standing mostly unnoticed by Holden. Imagine if this could be his life—publicly standing next to this man with the presence of a cool ocean breeze and a smile that seemed to casually absorb everything. A smile that made him want to start talking as if they were already old and intimate together. Imagine making him laugh and permanently bringing back that flash of interest he had seen in his eyes. And then being able to turn to him, kiss him on the mouth and tell him he’d be back in a second. And could he replenish his drink on the way. He imagined him answering _Thanks, babe._

Was there, he’d stood there wondering in a stunned state, for him, such a life? He remembered answering himself, _If there is, it might actually be worth everything._

It had been a painful, beautiful hour. And even when it was time to leave, the sensations had continued fluttering around him like happy butterflies.

So that in leaving and suddenly realizing they were making eye contact, he had seen his one chance to experience that life in the only way he knew he could, and had fully intended to make it count. Not caring about his self-imposed rule about men like him. Or that he wasn’t supposed to be giving men such looks to begin with. After all, barely anyone in the public knew of the guy’s existence, much less the sports press, and, with a family like his, Holden Wilson had to know discretion.

So, in no danger of being discovered, he had freely smiled at him. He had sent Holden Wilson his love. And then he had left.

The arrival of the business card a day later, therefore, had been strange. Though not really. Out of the party and out of the man’s orbit of attraction, common sense had set back in. This was what men like him did. Even if Holden had been an average guy there would have been a flag on the play. And he’d had a lifetime’s fill of games. How then to respond to someone who’d reacted only because he’d signaled a last-second capitulation? He hadn’t. 

Except that Kara had queried and followed up. Persisted. She’d felt that exposure to the philanthropy circles of the super rich would be fantastic for his image and his future. His sustained deflection had abruptly ended when she suddenly informed him that Holden Wilson had personally called to schedule drinks.

He hadn’t been upset. Maybe he should have been. After all, his silence couldn’t have been construed as anything but pointed rejection. But annoyance had been nowhere in sight. Instead he’d spent _days_ dragging his head down from the clouds. Struggling like a trapped bear to listen to that common sense. Until the morning of, when Kara had texted to remind that she was to confirm or cancel by 10 a.m., and his emotions had simply lured his common sense to the nearest window and shoved it out.

Holden had and would forever be nothing like he’d expected. Powerful men no matter how nice they presented used their power. Possessed of expectations and used to subservience, they simply couldn’t help themselves. But date after date, heart-melting night after night, even _rough_ months in, Holden seemed to want nothing from him. Nothing _but_ him. And even then uncomplainingly, taking so much less than he was willing to give. Even when Holden had started . . . behaving weirdly, Holden had never attempted to take away his power to choose. To decide for himself what would happen between them. The result being that in disregard of what he knew from experience, what he believed about himself, he had stayed with Holden. Put up with all of it. Heart only vibrating to Holden’s frequency, he had tolerated all of it.

Self-forgiveness had been a long and difficult road. But he could accept now that to someone in his precarious situation, daily life a daily vigilance against exposure, Holden’s no-pressure attitude had seemed godsent, and because of that he had chosen to look no deeper.

But now, on the other side of four years, he was choosing to do just that. His initial observations about Holden and his family name had remained and had never really altered—Holden had never left his name define him. There was no showing off, no displays of influence for the purpose of impressing him. No attempts at controlling or manipulating him. No days in which Holden offered to take him to “heights” he had never experienced. A trite and common enough enticement whispered often in the league. Instead their lives had quickly fallen into routine, basic routine that had carried an enchantment more potent than all the displays of power in the world.

Yet throughout the years he had carried the suspicion that Holden was playing outside his power circle. And not just playing, but doing so on borrowed time. And last summer after finally meeting Holden’s parents, he realized they all were—Holden, Alastair, Cecelia, him. Holden had been having his fun, showing him only what he wanted him to see, but at some point a name that heavy dropped. No question, it had dropped.

Their last night in Johnston out on his pop’s deck, being held by his mother in a way she hadn’t since his childhood, she had told him something that had helped prompt his dinner with Holden at Yamashiro asking to know everything. She’d said that marriage was that brick wall of everything you avoided about yourself. There was no going around it, no going under it, no going over it. You simply had to stand and face the wall and dismantle it brick by brick.

Four years after having met Holden, he was finally about to meet Holden Wilson.

*


	2. KV's House Party

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. It wasn’t how he had planned it.

They weren’t supposed to be in public, much less at the house party of one of Satan’s helpers. But Sean had insisted and he was in no moral position to argue. After tonight, he might never be.

 _Why, why_ had Sean chosen to do this here? Of all the places in the world.

When Sean had called and told him to meet here, he’d been thankful it had been over the phone. He couldn’t have otherwise masked his dismay. _He_ hadn’t planned on attending any more of KV’s parties in this lifetime because he considered this type of nightlife permanently in his past. But Sean hadn’t been asking. And he’d just had to be grateful for the buffer of a phone call to tamp his roiling stomach. Of course he’d be here, he’d assured him, while mentally strangling Craig.

The hard pop of the driver side door broke in, snapping him back to the present. Elliot had pushed open his door and stepped out, already thumbing the key lock button. A sight which had him hurriedly reaching for his own door handle and letting himself out before Elliot locked him and his hesitancy inside the Jaguar.

Elliot was already around the car and strolling toward the house, looking neither left nor right. It was a beautiful evening, breeze in the date palms turning the evening air musical. Ignoring the surprised looks they were getting from guests hanging out on the stone driveway, he trailed Elliot toward the house.

Taxed by the same dread as at Blake’s, except worse, because Blake’s was a public establishment and had state laws governing what could happen inside, and a house party wasn’t and didn’t, he crossed the oversized mahogany doors slowly behind Elliot. Entering the private domain of a notorious man with a reputation for . . . well, delivering on private entertainment.

After the urge to strangle Craig passed, he had come to his senses. No way Craig could have talked Sean into coming. First, Craig would have warned him. Second, the party wasn’t even on their social calendar so there would’ve been no reason for Craig to mention it. And then it occurred to him that while it wasn’t on the calendar Petey had shown him, he’d never seen the one Geffen Foundation had sent Sean. Elliot had mentioned that one had been sent to Sean’s publicity and he’d assumed it was the same he’d seen. Were his friends determined enough to have pulled something like this on him? Definitely. 

But why would Sean want to deal with this? After the Raven Fund gala and what Neil and Scott had pulled? _You mean after your idiocy in not deleting absolutely everyone’s number from your phone?_

Okay. So since it wasn’t in Sean’s nature to be vindictive, he could only guess it was that other aspect of Sean’s nature kicking in — the absolute drive to compete and win. Except that this wasn’t a game, and his stomach wasn’t churning in the hopes of spectating a championship. Did Sean want to be here so he could get into a fight with someone? 

Inside the foyer, tugging on Elliot’s blazer, he slowed them down. Slowed Elliot down. Elliot did, turning to face him.

Saying nothing at all, Elliot watched as he shifted nervously, just inside the doors, helplessly flashing a scan across the foyer. Not that he expected Sean there waiting to ambush him or anything, but better safe than sorry. Elliot swept his eyes over him. 

“You’re all shiny,” Elliot said. 

“What?” he asked loudly, startled. Guests trailing through the foyer glanced over, smiling at him, some pursing kisses.

Elliot lowered his voice. “You’re sweating.”

He swiped at his forehead. “No I'm not.”

Elliot eyed him. “Let’s go.”

They entered the living room.

KV’s house, it bore mentioning, was nothing like KV himself, who was basically just a big boor. Shaggy haired and with a personality to match, KV was that person you wished existed when you needed a sledge hammer that struck with the precision of a scalpel. So kind of an amazing guy, but strictly on the professional side. On the personal side, KV’s discretion dropped to absolute zero. KV just didn’t care and anything was game, and good luck to you after that.

KV’s house however. Even arriving late, he still found Sean eyefucking the place. An all-stone exterior, the mansion was wrapped inside in emerald-green silk wallpapers, and gleaming with traditional mahogany furniture that soaked up the rich reds and golds of the decor. It had walls adorned with original oil paintings, a re-imagined gay-themed Edgar Degas series being his personal favorite. Which had sounded crazy when Craig had first told him about it, but there you had it. Worked like a charm. The entire house did. A lovely aesthetic feast, and nothing was more incongruent than when KV walked through.

That said, in keeping with KV’s personality, nothing inside the house appeared delicate either. All the furniture was sturdy—the sofas and chairs and even the side tables—and when filled with men alive in each other’s company, like tonight, it was all somehow very comforting and very reassuring.

Well, normally anyway.

When they walked in, half the room turned. There were gasps of pleasure and a lot of scattered waves. He didn’t know ninety percent of these people. Did this normally happen when he came to KV’s parties? Had he never noticed this? He didn’t think so.

Well, maybe . . . 

Trailing Elliot across the living room, he was carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone at all. And if someone called his name he was going to pretend he hadn’t heard.

He found his guy seated on a big red and gold side chair surrounded by a clutch of hungry young men with slaughter in their eyes. Some were on pulled-up side tables, others were crouched, still others stood around with their eyes locked on Sean. After waiting weeks, months, and maybe even a full year for the appearance of currently the most famous gay man alive, none of them was interested in hanging back. What was Sean doing here otherwise?

Exactly the question he wanted answered.

As they approached, there was a general turning around from the men around Sean. Smiles greeting him, filling his peripheral vision as he leaned in and dropped a kiss in Sean’s moustache, following him as he straightened. The smiles were warm, knowing. Almost making him want to blurt, _It’s not what you think, it’s not why we’re here! Everyone go back to what you were doing., I'm sorry he thinks he should be here!_

But no one cared. They _were_ here, so, period. Inadvertently, Sean seemed to be creating goodwill for himself among LA’s gay community. But maybe not inadvertently? Maybe this was why his friends were insisting on all these things?

He didn’t know. And just then he didn’t care. In acknowledgment of his kiss, Sean had momentarily glanced up at him. But Sean didn’t look at all at Elliot, who had lifted a finger at his side just enough to constitute civility. Sean sent his eyes halfway up Elliot’s body, then seemed to decide he didn’t really care and simply lowered his gaze again.

Irritation barely contained, Elliot shifted beside him, but sensing he still needed someone standing at his side, didn’t leave yet. 

He kept his eyes on Sean, trying to gage his mood. Trying to see what they were doing there.

Seated flush against the chair’s backrest, his forearms resting on his thighs, Sean looked both relaxed and tense. An incongruent state he couldn’t have identified even a year ago but which he now recognized as the one in which Sean quarterbacked. Knowing he was up against a tough opponent but confident he had the upper hand. Which was just . . . great. The right party attitude.

And Sean was gazing openly at the already excited party, listening to the sexy, entertained laughter, the bold “Hi’s!”, the sweet kissing among . . . reuniting friends. If Ten had been Sean’s first time in a gay bar, he’d guess this was Sean’s first time at a private house party. How unforgettable it would have been to have brought Sean here himself, in a different version of now, with the two of them on the same page and here to have a serious amount of fun.

But that wasn’t Sean. And this was not fun.

Sean didn’t look shocked or outright hostile like at Blake’s and looked much less defensive than at Ten. Sean looked determined. Taking in the room. Not just that, it seemed to him that Sean was looking directly at faces.

Looking _for_ faces, he realized suddenly.

That was why they were there. Sean was— looking for someone. Or a bunch of someones. Hardly believing it, he watched as Sean practically scanned from face to face.

Was Sean just trying to trigger himself? Was this Darren level anger that needed to get expressed? Or was it just Joel level, where Sean could see what was before him but pretend nothing was happening. But . . . they were here, so . . . But Sean had neither smacked Neil and Scott, but nor had he ignored them. So this wanting to know _and see_ without wanting to punch someone, but not ignoring them either, was it some kind of new, mid-range level anger?

Just to test, apparently, the universe had Elliot place his hand on his waist and lean in to start whispering that he was going upstairs. When he saw the narrowed look Sean bolted on Elliot’s hand, he had his answer.

If Elliot noticed Sean’s glare, Elliot ignored it. Elliot instead bent and kissed Petey, who was seated on the sofa next to Sean. Between Sean and Petey, against the end of the sofa, was Craig. Legs crossed, drink in hand, Craig was turned slightly away from Sean and was instead glued visually to Petey. That was because Petey, who was also surrounded by a harem of admirers and holding court by chatting and making the men around him laugh, waving gracefully as he spoke, was also in a state of brittle nervousness. Not really evident without knowing Petey, but it showed every time Petey flicked his eyes sideways to Sean, which was every other second. Frankly, he thought Petey was holding out quite well over the past few weeks, but reckoning hadn’t yet come. Petey still had some resistance in him because Craig still hadn’t been able to take advantage of the situation yet.

Elliot gave Craig a brief wave and turned for the staircase without another word to any of them.

So he should probably go and greet KV and come back and get started on this. Instead he watched some more as someone now strolled up, glass of green stuff in hand, and handed it to Sean. 

Sean thanked them, set the drink on a side table. He stared at the drink for a second, wondering if Sean was really inexperienced enough to drink it. But Sean showed the drink as much attention as he’d given Elliot. 

A hand settled on his leg, a guy he regularly saw at these parties. Did he need a place to squeeze in? He shook his head. He was having a slight out of body experience, obviously. Because while getting smiled at and stroked a little, he was also acutely aware of the hands placed oh-so-casually on Sean’s thighs, while their owners engaged Sean in ardent conversation. Hands which placement were no question contributing to Sean’s tension. Because all Sean had to do was move in the wrong manner and there’d be a few accidental movements in response. And there might be the happy accident of the night. Which might explain Sean’s rather protective gatekeeping placement of his forearms.

And yet Sean was not leaving. Not even budging, while he stood there feeling more disconnected by the moment. One guy then started asking Sean about one of his workouts on the NFL’s YouTube channel. A question which unless Sean was joining them via satellite and reading the question off a teleprompter, was far and away the most loaded question he’d heard in a long time. In fact he was sure he’d heard it in a porn scene. He tried not to react, but all Sean did was lower his head, appearing to be listening attentively.

Sean was and wasn’t. More than actually listening, Sean was signaling to him that he wasn’t interested in talking unless and until he was ready to _talk._

Pulling his lips tight, he nodded. The hand on his calf stopped stroking and tightened. He nodded some more to cover all other reaction, the pointed toward the hallway behind him.

“I’ll— I'll be right back, I have to go say hi to KV.”

Sean lifted a short look in acknowledgement that he’d spoken. “Yeah,” the guy whose hand was on him excitedly said. “Go say hi to KV! He’s been waiting all night to see you. We’ll take care of Sean!” A near unanimous _hmm-mm_ rose like an incantation, and he nodded down at the guy, not sure why he was doing so.

He finally turned to Petey, who hadn’t stopped talking, but now interrupted himself to give him a pretty wave hello. Lashes batting fast and hard, eyes struggling to stay on him. Combined with Petey’s intensely beautiful features, it was like being physically handled. In commiseration, he too bent and kissed him.

And turning away, he caught Craig’s eyes. To see that Craig was giving him a small smile. It took a second to realize that it was a proud-of-you smile.

He and Craig had never had a touchy-feely kind of friendship, but in that moment he could have hugged and kissed him. 

He headed into the hallway.

Halfway down, he ran into Muller who pointed at then high-fived him. He didn’t even want to know what that was all about, knowing he’d be dealing with fallout from tonight on more than one front. Because obviously Muller considered Sean’s presence at the party some kind of agent related score. It wouldn’t at all surprise him if Muller thought this meant Sean was now ready to commit to some steamy HBO series based on a closeted life in the NFL. If Kara got that call, he wouldn’t even let Sean get irate because, hello, what was being at one of these parties supposed to lead a normal person to think?

Finally entering the library, he waited at the entrance. Possibly the most stunning room in the house, the library was floor to ceiling mahogany bookshelves sweeping the room in a broad arc. Seemingly containing every book ever published, KV would tell his famous actor clients that his shelves were full of nothing but parts for them. No doubt the actual reading was left to a crop of assistants, but it sure sold the idea. On seeing him, KV deposited his drink on a shelf and maneuvered around bodies and out stretched legs towards him, with most of the owners turning to look.

Easily, he knew half the room. Including a particular face who’d been extensively quoted in the TMZ article. An ex he hadn’t seen in almost a year and suspected had been avoiding him over a needlessly noisy breakup. But who apparently now knew exactly when and where to pop up and give him haughty looks. No one said hello, he just got some surprised looks . . . and a lot of knowing smiles.

Reaching him, KV took his hand and kissed it, like a lord at court, before spreading his arms in a come to papa gesture. Obligingly, he hugged him, though his heart was suddenly thumping. KV looked concerned. Which wasn’t the most comforting sight on a man who usually couldn’t give a damn. Not to mention in this house full of memories, some of them actual living embodiments currently smiling at him right there in the room.

Squeezing him more tightly than was necessary or called for, KV whispered, “You’re with friends now,” smarmily into his ear. Smarm, melodrama, but what else was KV. Then leaning backwards, as if checking the hallway, KV asked, “Where’s your boyfriend? Elliot can’t possibly be taking your engagement well.”

He ignored all of it. Glancing around, he searched instead for a server.

After Yamashiro, he had suggested that they snip their scheduled weekend and retreat somewhere private to properly talk—a hotel suite, a boat in Malibu, seven hours on a private flight, even the vineyard in Santa Barbara his dad had just bought. The house on the property was empty of furniture but had incredible vidid orange, Spanish art deco tiles, an accordingly unbelievable fireplace. He’d imagined setting something romantic, something to impress Sean, before the fireplace with blankets and pillows and candles. Things he knew Sean would respond to before he opened his mouth. The things to make their conversation much easier. Anywhere, doing anything, expect at a house party in LA. Sean had refused.

Sean was out there thinking God only knew what and counting down the  
seconds to his return. And apparently, nothing he said or did could deter his future husband from that.

So he didn’t need KV’s jokes paving the way. They were too little and too late. 

What he wouldn’t have minded, though, was something strong and sweet to take the edge off.

Apparently sensing his mood, or maybe seeing his expression, whatever it actually was, KV waved over a server and ordered a chocolate vodka martini and to “load up on the vodka.”

Well, he didn’t know about that, but he thanked him anyway. And let himself be led toward the library’s picture windows.

And to the spectacular view of the property’s infinity pool. Set into the Hombly hillside, the pool was an astonishing body of ruby-red water that seemed to fall from view into the sky. As with the rest of the house, it was a work of art. And already, framed dramatically by the red underwater lights, a squad of scantily dressed men, in small and smaller swimwear, were out there, floating on giant rubber cupcake holders. Like dessert.

Without needing to look at KV, he knew why he was being shown the view—as a confidence booster. As despite not knowing how to swim, he’d happily taken on the role of unofficial lifeguard in dispensing his share of poolside mouth-to-mouths over the years. _In a different world, in a different life,_ he’d been telling himself for over a year. _I would have had only one._

“Listen,” KV said, turning to him, all undertones. “I hear he’s mad about the TMZ piece. Is that true?”

Tiredly, he said, “I don’t want to talk about it, KV.”

“Then why is he here?” And continuing as if they were actually discussing it, “To confirm?” And when he turned away, from the sight of the pool, from his host, doing what he could to hide that he was wondering the same, KV said, “He _is?_ ”

“KV, who’re you talking to right now? I just told you we’re not having this conversation.”

“What’d you expect me to do, he’s _right_ out there.” He said nothing. KV just plunged on. “And why do I get the feeling that I can’t just go out there and tell him to chill? Oh, I know,” “KV gasped. “Probably because he’s a self-righteous tight-ass.” Laughter and a soft snort. “Does Alastair know that he’s a tight-ass? Fuck, does Elliot?” Big sigh. “Sweetness, what are we doing here? This isn’t you.”

And somehow, the earth didn’t open up and swallow him right there and then at that colossal falsehood.

Shaking his head, trying not to look at the men frolicking in giant floating cupcake holders, he just wanted this night over. He was just trying to pull his courage together and go spill his guts.

“So— is this really the end? You being gone from the scene is not just cause he’s in town for his offseason?”

“He’s not _in town_ for his offseason, he lives in LA.”

“You know what I mean. Answer me.”

Now he looked at KV, slightly astounded. “KV, I’m gone from all this because I’m getting _married._ ”

“Jesus Christ, don’t say it. Look at me, I’m shaking.”

He turned away again, giving up. But in the ensuing silence snuck a look at KV, who was watching him. Probably as closely as he’d watched Sean earlier. Catching his look, KV dimmed his gaze at him in a way he was sure was meant to be seductive. A brown bear would have better skills.

“You know,” KV said softly. “You came here, drank my wine for almost a decade, you and that shady executive of yours, and you never once gave me a chance.”

Now he raised a slow look at KV. “A chance to do what?”

“God, I remember when you first started coming, just outta grad school. You were like a pearl wrapped in silk. Alastair Wilson’s son? Oof. Like a tease I couldn’t get outta my head. And,” KV continued, touching a finger to his breastbone, his aggressive tones dimming as well. “Had you told me that for the last three years you had this kind of secret going on, I would have done my part and kept the riffraff off you. Myself included. You know I would have.”

Surprised, he glanced at KV, but quickly averted his eyes. It was probably bullshit anyway. At least, thinking so allowed him to stifle the trickle of shame trying to run through him.

But of course KV saw it, because he wasn’t the host of all things evil for nothing. Tilting his head, KV gave him a look that was both sincere and . . . kind of submissive. A look so alien to KV’s face that he stood there returning his gaze. But he knew exactly what was coming next. For the past year, almost every guy he had ever dated had been giving him some version of the same look, the same line. 

“You know, you would have made a great husband. _I_ would have made you a great husband. And I could have given you anything you wanted. Even Alastair would have been okay with it. Of course he would have. He knows I could take care of you. He knows I would have made you happy.”

He didn’t even blink. Just side-eyed him. “KV, we both know that none of those statements is true. Plus I think Alastair should be free to marry you in about a couple more years. Maybe sooner if you can manage to fake enough sincerity to repeat this same pitch.”

KV eyed him a moment longer. Biting his lip, still trying to look seductive. Then KV delivered a slow, unfazed shrug. “Worth a try.”

At last the server appeared with his drink. But looking at it now, at its rick dark texture and a familiar promise of escape, he felt his courage finally come together. He no longer wanted the drink. Didn’t need it. What he needed was to go back to the living room.

“You wanna come say hi to some people?” KV asked, lifting the drink from the tray and setting it on a side table. “I know you see some faces.”

That he did. But he slowly shook his head. Both to the drink and to the artful offer of mediation over obviously lingering hard feelings from some of his exes. Regarding the drink, he was indeed getting married and could no longer afford escapes. 

As for the faces, between them and him, for a long time now, the answer had been no.

—

Emerging from the hallway, he found Sean waiting for him by the hallway entrance, apparently having left his audience to more closely await his return. Sean was seated on a beautifully hewn, mahogany high flower table, next to a Chinese dynasty vase springing blue irises and purple hydrangeas. Dressed in a baby blue T-shirt with a Des Moines eatery’s logo, and dark blue pants that looked like a nice pair of Dickies, Sean looked like a big blue velvet and vanilla cake. And seated next to the flowers, the entire thing to him looked like a magazine ad for condoms.

Engaging Sean in conversation was a threesome of guests that included Stuart, the timid, introverted lawyer he’d once dated and broken up with for no particular reason he could recall. At least, not at the time.

Stuart’s eyes were fastened on Sean, shifting with Sean’s every micro-movement and giving the impression of a transfixed, sorrowful cat. While the other two guests said hi to him and left, and he sat down beside Sean who’d made room for him, Stuart stayed, simply shifting his eyes to him.

“Hi, Holden.”

“Hi, Stuart.”

Then silence. Stuart had been at Blake’s, congratulating them on their engagement and saying very nice things to Sean. He’d appreciated that. 

But not that long ago Stuart had also cornered him at the reception where he’d last seen David Geffen and his dad, acting weird at the sight of his engagement ring and asking baffling questions. Whether things hadn’t been good between them. Baffling because he’d thought things had been. 

But now he understood what Stuart had been asking. What type of relationship had they been having, when they got along so well—Stuart was among the rare ones that Petey had liked, not a jerk, not arrogant, not condescending—and yet in their relationship he had remained . . . inaccessible.

How many times had Stuart flattered him about how sweet he was, how wonderful to be with. Stuart reminded him a lot of Craig, had Craig been born a saint—true to those he cared about and without a judgmental bone in his body. But to Stuart’s subtle prodding he’d had nothing but silence. Into which he’d offer a smile or a kiss instead of an answer to the question of the lack of real intimacy between them. Why, when everything else was in place for it. But back then he could no more have given Stuart what he wanted any more than he could now suddenly speak French.

Stuart had been his last substantial relationship before Sean, and perhaps more than all of them, except maybe Foley, captured the distance and utter lack of self-awareness that had been him before he met Sean.

Sometimes he wondered how Stuart still bothered talking to him.

Well, Stuart wasn’t talking to him. Stuart was starting at Sean. 

As Sean lifted his hand to rub the back of his neck, Stuart’s eyes followed, lowering as Sean’s hand lowered, stilling when Sean’s hand no longer moved, until Stuart became aware of what he was doing and blinked. Stuart then shifted his eyes to him, as if suddenly aware that he was sitting right there and able to provide answers.

But he got no more questions. Not anymore.

Stuart returned his gaze to Sean and said, “It was nice meeting you Sean.”

Sean nodded, without looking up, without saying anything. Just kept his eyes on the Persian carpeted floor beneath his fire-engine red sneakers.

Stuart then gave him a last, kind of _I’ll never understand_ look, and pulled on a tight smile before walking away.

“That was Stuart,” he said after a while.

“So I gathered.”

“I dated him a while back. Shortly before I met you, actually.”

Sean was quiet for a long moment, then asked, “What happened?”

“One day after I introduced him to my dad, I broke up with him.”

Sean turned and looked at him. “Why?”

He shrugged. “He’s a very nice person, but for a lot of them meeting Alastair was just as important. Maybe more so. And once done, it would start feeling like I was getting weirdly personal calls from a work colleague. After which there’d seem no reason to continue.” Thinking back on the time, he added, “It was an easy out.”

“And I guess I wasn’t.” Sean became quiet, and he could tell that the thought had probably only just occurred to Sean. “Because I wasn’t out and you couldn’t just introduce me to Alastair and be done with me.”

Whereas he’d already given it plenty of thought. “Had I introduced you to Alastair thinking I could then be done with you, I would have been in a world of shit.”

Fending off his dad, who’d be trying to seal Sean’s exit . . . while he was back up in Malibu haunting Sean’s front door, buzzing to be let back in. Sean’s name coming up repeatedly at Arthur Railings’ office, and past inadvertently outing Sean, raising a big red flag. He had little doubt that his father would have had Sean abducted for questioning. He didn’t even want to contemplate what his mother would have done.

“Did—”

Sean had stopped, making him look at him. Sean had his head down. And now he slowly said, “You once told me that . . . the whole time you were . . . doing this, you were still thinking of me.” Then Sean surreptitiously glanced up at the men cozied up everywhere around the room. “How?”

Heart feeling overly hot in his chest, not to mention what was happening on his face, he couldn’t quite answer. None of the carefully crafted words he had gone over alone in his bedroom were coming.

He’d spent the last year trying to make Sean understand that the way Sean loved him and changed him, but so many of Sean’s reactions made him wonder whether it was just that Sean didn’t believe him. But now he understood that it wasn’t that.

Out of embarrassment and outright shame, he’d been insisting on showing Sean only the cleaned, finished product and asking that Sean take his word that the previous version had been a mess. But his friends had been right, and his own common sense had been naggingly right. For Sean to understand, Sean had to know the whole story, see the entire picture. And if he was afraid of what would happen as a result, then maybe he needed to take a cue from the famous person who had believed enough in love to come out and tell the world that he wasn’t straight. 

“Sweetheart—”

“I know, Sean.”

While Sean fell quiet, he took a look around the room. Over on the sofa, Petey was now reclined. Head in the cook of Craig’s shoulder, Petey was staring heavy-lidded at Sean. A Filipino guy, Nilo, almost as pretty as Petey, had knelt in front of Petey and was whispering to him. When Nilo stopped, both of them slid Sean the same look. Nilo sighed, lowered his head to rest on Petey’s stomach. Now Craig lowered his head to do some whispering of his own, and whatever Craig said had Petey rolling his eyes hard enough to sprain them. Nevertheless Petey’s color was darkening and already he could hear the self-recriminations in the morning. 

And come morning, a handful of guests would still be here, having breakfast with KV before heading home. That too used to be fun. And right then Elliot was upstairs, too critical of most guys’ approach to bear the atmosphere downstairs. An attitude he kept telling Elliot was a negative side effect of overuse of a brain. Upstairs were fewer guests having actual conversations, the cerebral ones adrift in their happy space. Down here it was real and messy, with many altercations having broken out over the years. Call him crazy, but he loved it down here.

Discreetly, he glanced at Sean. Sean had his eyes on Craig and Petey. But soon they were both looking at the guy with close-cropped salt and pepper hair who had broken from his group, who’d been talking while . . . massaging each other, and was coming over to them.

Stopped at Sean’s side, hand on Sean’s shoulder, the man began whispering to Sean. He’d never seen Sean get openly propositioned, so in spite of his nervous state he froze and sharpened his eyes and ears like a hound on a scent. But he neither heard what was said nor what Sean said in response. Catching the suitor’s eyes as the man turned away, he received a smile. “Maybe next time,” he man said to him. “Enjoy your night, boys.”

He realized he was nodding, and stopped doing it.

And suddenly Oliver, his ex from the card concierge service he used, was walking by. Oliver who’d been so needlessly rude in leaving his card at Blake’s. Oliver didn’t look at them, but the guy trailing him did, all pretty eyes, full lips, and a burning hot inviting stare. All bad thoughts in his eyes.

Dropping his gaze, he was looking again at Petey, then dropped it even farther. Staring now at the hard red Adidas sneakers on Sean’s feet that only looked _quietly_ aggressive. Sean’s sponsors were forever sending in things and he’d never seen these before.

Nervously, Oliver and his date gone from his vision, he glanced at Sean. Sean wasn’t looking at him. And he had no idea whether in looking, Sean had seen anything like what he had. But he would always see it, whether he acted on it or not. 

They were so different. So much that it was hard to believe that they were still sitting side by side four years later. But they were, and he would give up absolutely everything he had been born with, give up his name and family, and certainly give up all of this, to have him.

This wasn’t how he had planned to do it, but he was going to do it. He stood up, took Sean’s hand and had to ignore the small hush that followed his actions. “Come on.”

Sean didn’t immediately come on. As if he was suddenly having second thoughts.

But then Sean did.

—

On their way upstairs, he stopped a server and ordered drinks for the upstairs patio. Then, Sean walking slowly behind him, he led them through the living room towards the staircase. Past hands trailing their legs as they passed. Despite knowing Sean’s background, despite knowing Sean, it still surprised him when Sean’s hand contracted on his. As if Sean was silently saying _Don’t let go of me._

He would have been astounded, what was Sean _doing_ in a place like this, except that this was the man who had come out in the NFL because he refused to tell him he loved him. Courage was not something Sean Jackson lacked.

On the second floor landing, guests stood sipping cocktails and quietly talking. Quiet gasps floated down as they appeared, then silence as they passed. Again, all for Sean, since that generally wasn’t what happened when he approached a group of men at a house party.

Fingers interlocked, he walked them down the carriage lamp lit hallway. Sean took in surroundings silently. But there was no way to not be impressed. Halfway down, he pushed open the study door.

On the other side of the room were a handful of guests, some of whom sent soft hellos their way. He looked over to see Oliver, staring now. And his companion still looking frustrated. Wow. Whatever his own shortcomings, he had at least never attended a party for the explicit purpose of ignoring a date. But for Oliver that wouldn’t even require effort.

At the open patio doors, an evening breeze gusted in. It was lovely and ruffled his hair, and when he suddenly felt Sean’s hand on his waist he wasn’t at all surprised. Of the things men found attractive about him, he’d always been told his hair was among. For Sean, though, it was like an aphrodisiac. He found it kind of funny, but you couldn’t guess what would turn a person on.

On the beautiful stone space, there was just one other couple, occupying a sofa. They got smiles and nods before the pair returned to their conversation. Both men wore glasses, one of whom he recognized, a literal rocket scientist from NASA’s jet propulsion lab twenty minutes up the highway in Pasadena. His wager to bring them upstairs had paid off, because the only thing Richard found sexier than physics was another rocket scientist. The glasses and the brain had appealed to him, but he’d never stood a chance. If Richard even remember his name, it was because he’d read it somewhere. They might as well be invisible over here.

If Sean wanted to see for himself the things that had come between them, fine. But it didn’t mean that Sean had to be staring right _at_ those things, or have their hands on him, while they got through difficult things. It wasn’t a scenario Sean could handle, no matter what Sean thought.

Sean meanwhile had reached the stone edge of the patio and was leaning forward over it, staring in astonishment at the sight below. In spite of himself, he smiled at Sean’s reaction. 

Beneath them were KV’s back gardens. Rocky and hilly, the gardens were another crazy incongruent aspect of KV’s house. While the server arrived and laid out their drinks, he watched the war of surprise on Sean’s face.

Below them, night lights twinkled in a vast garden that was nothing short of a rough, fairytale wonderland. Tiny white, blue and yellow lights decorated hardy sages, licorice mints, locoweeds and Mexican manzanitas, with cultivated ladybirds and butterflies fluttering among the plants. He’d seen even the most cynical of humans check their eyesight at the sight. An ogre could have fallen in love down there.

Leaned forward over the wall, Sean took in the sight in near offended disbelief. Then Sean turned a confused look at him. “This guy?”

He almost laughed. “I think he does it to fuck with people.”

“The house, or himself?”

“Both, probably. KV’s very good at what he does.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Well,” he said, thanking the server who finished and left. “He represents actors so, I guess . . . selling illusions. His clients come here and see a fantasy world, and there’s nothing he can’t convince them to do. He even has great handwriting. You get a note from him and it’s like the Queen of England wrote you.”

Finished hate-loving the entire house, because really, if Sean as a romantic didn’t respond to this place then no one could, Sean slowly turned from the gardens as he spoke and leaned against the stone wall. Crossing his ankles, wrapping an arm around himself, Sean settled and began stroking a finger through his beard while listening to him.

“You sound like you know a lot about this place,” Sean said. “And about this house.”

Skipping a beat, which he hadn’t intended, he replied that he’d known KV for some time.

“Mostly here I guess,” Sean said.

He nodded in place of elaborating. 

“I guess he does this often?”

“Occasionally, yes.”

“And you like being here? Like at Blake’s?”

“I used to, yes.”

Sean stopped asking questions. Tonight was about getting to all of it after all.

Their drinks had been set on a side table near them. His a big virgin piña colada with a shaved hunk of pineapple wedged on the rim. Both of which Sean eyed circumspectly, but with a whole lot of judgement. Under different circumstances he would have laughed and made him drink half of it. Next to it was Sean’s own cucumber mint and lime cooler sparkling neatly in a cut-crystal tumbler. Looking cool and collected next to his pale yellow bomb. The story of their life together.

“Craig mentioned that this guy helped last year with that FRC nonsense.”

He nodded, pleased that Sean had moved on from calling it “that FRC hell” to just “nonsense.” But KV, Ben Hanan, Stevenson Byrne, had all done more than just help. They’d been integral to his scorched-earth response policy.

 _Your family’s response policy,_ he corrected himself, accepting it. If he couldn’t face who he had been for his entire adult life, he’d never get through tonight, or the nights to come.

Sean having turned around and making himself comfortable against the stone wall, now stared silently at him. A set of wide wood-framed arm chairs flanked them. Evidently Sean was going to be comfortable standing where he was, eyes on him, but he would soon need to sink into one of those chairs for support. He’d noticed that Sean’s eyes had gone toward the study a couple of times, so the hesitation he’d sensed downstairs was real. As if not withstanding a need to know, Sean didn’t seem quite ready to hear anything deeper than a breakup with Stuart.

And of course he got that. Neither of them was about to have fun. Going to him, he stood before him with his legs on either side of him, crowding him a little, so that Sean had to lower his arms to accommodate him, holding him by his waist. Michelle had said things about proximity in times of stress that he couldn’t remember in detail but which his mind was hammering now.

This close, Sean had to feel him trembling all over. Sean might have, because the hands on his waist tightened. He liked that. While Sean stared down at him, his breath hot on his mouth, he lightly touched the thin silver chain disappearing down Sean’s T-shirt. 

Tonight he was frightened. Even at his emotional lowest—the day Sean walked out on him to leave for Iowa, don’t tell him Sean hadn’t known what he was doing by leaving at the start of his offseason, their sacrosanct time to be together—even then he had never doubted that Sean loved him. And there had been bad times since. But he had never doubted. He loved this man and he knew he was loved back.

But now his hot heart was baking itself into his chest, a heat so hard it was painful. Because now he was holding out against a frightened little voice that wondered how, exactly, even someone with Sean’s resilience could continue love someone like him after hearing what he had to say. Whether after all this time, he was finally about to discover the outer limits of Sean’s love.

Sean’s warm breath on his mouth comforted him. Waiting. But curious, distracted by the silver chain he had never seen, he slowly began extracting it, until it revealed its pendant. Until it was sitting in his palm. Frowning, he held it close. No, he wasn’t imagining things. The pendant was a little silver H encircled by diamonds. Blinking, he looked up.

Sean was watching him. Disorientated, he looked again at the pendant he’d never seen. When had Sean gotten this?

Sean said nothing.

With a deep breath, he closed his fist around it.

Long, extended moments followed, during which he only heard Richard and his friend softly talking. Without even realizing it, he’d asked for a sign of assurance of Sean’s love and he had gotten it.

He opened his eyes, slowly dropped the pendant back down Sean’s T-shirt and watched it drain the silver chain down with it. Sean let him go as he back off, reached for one of the armchairs and pulled it round, sinking into it with the release of a deep breath. He looked up Sean.

Met his eyes with a silent plea that he see the love he carried for him. That he see that he had let himself be broken and put together again in a way that was right only for him. For him and no else. That everything he had been had been rearranged so that it made sense only for Sean Jackson, and that nothing had made him happier, or more whole.

_Please see it._

Then he looked away and started talking.

*


	3. In Love Before Valentine's Day

Three things happened to him when he fell in love with Sean Jackson. Before Sean, he had known himself to be a certain kind of person: He didn’t do long term relationships and he had been raised to be in control. After meeting Sean, he experienced a dismantling of self that he wouldn’t wish on any adult who thought they had a strong sense of self.

The first was that he sank far and deep into a place he hadn’t known existed. Down to a true self he’d never known and had certainly never met.

The second was that he lost all self-control. The one thing he had taken for granted about himself, that gave him confidence and a sense of stability, utterly and completely failing him and leaving him a confused, disassociated mess.

And third, and easily the most devastating to him personally, was that he learned to use men. Sean included. The men he dated, always a source of simple, enjoyable pleasures, became an avenue of selfishness. Of getting everything he wouldn’t allow Sean to give. While keeping Sean tied up in knots in Malibu, refusing him a genuine conversation on what was happening between them—what had already happened the moment he picked up the phone and called Kara because Sean wouldn’t call him—he took his emotions elsewhere for examination. Somewhere safe, where he _could_ exert control. Never letting Sean see them, never letting Sean show him his.

Three things with the one result that he had been suffering a crisis of identity without realizing it.

And which didn’t resolve until after he had returned from Johnston a second time. Four and a half years of a struggle to figure out and accept who he might truly be, who he actually was. But not before hurting so deeply the man he loved and nearly costing himself things too heartbreaking to contemplate. Behaving in ways that were shameful and foreign to him, at a time when introspection had been as usual for him as going into space.

Since Sean’s marriage proposal he had picked and flicked at a few memories, glanced at others and looked away, talk about some and left out the ones that were too complicated to deal with.

But since Sean had demanded that he tell him everything, he had looked at it all. While avoiding thinking about the past, he had sometimes wondered whether it was just that he didn’t have the vocabulary for a conversation. But the truth was that the words were always there, but fear acted like a hand constantly scrambling word tiles. With that hand restrained, he could start arranging words. They were all there and he just needed to start.

And doing so meant starting at the beginning. And that was with Ian.

“Who’s Ian?”

Raising his eyes, he stared at Sean. “What?” he asked.

“Who’s Ian?”

His thoughts slowed to a crawl as he drew his brow at Sean. Sean looked as perplexed as him. 

“But I've told you about Ian,” he said. Sean’s expression didn’t change.

Not only had he told him, he could remember Sean asking this question. Then he blinked, remembering that no, the question had come in a dream. When he had told Sean about Ian he hadn’t wanted to say his name. Just as he had never wanted or expected to hear the name of any man he had ever dated while he had been with Sean. He had never wanted anyone else’s name existing between them.

Now he said, quietly, “Ian is . . . he’s the one I told you about. When my dad said I’d be married and divorced twice before I was forty.”

Words he was now saying without wanting any feelings attached. But nearly twenty years later, he still felt them. They still hurt.

“Oh,” Sean said softly. “Right.”

He nodded as well, clamping down on emotions trying to scuttle all over the place. After a moment he took a slow breath and started again.

*

It began with Ian because that was the first time his father had taken the time to talk to him about being grown up and in love, or thinking he was. He’d heard the talk since childhood—at the dinner table with his dad’s latest girlfriend, him at sixteen or eighteen or whatever age trying not to think about what his mother would think it; what she might try to finesse from him when he went to spend the weekend with her on his child of divorce rotation. 

Throughout his life he’d heard about being in the driver’s seat. Always being in control because he was a Wilson. And a Hadley. And this was who they were and what they did.

He _had_ heard it all before, so that when his father had had to bring down reality over Ian, who had been his first full sexual experience, leading him on and devastating him, he’d actually felt very stupid. What Ian had done was exactly what his father had spent years telling him should never happen. Yet it had, he had let a guy walk him like he was born yesterday. He was pained and humiliated, but from that lunch with his father onward, strengthened. 

From that day, he had formed a shield around himself, and from that day until the day of his very first date with Sean, he had been self-protected.

As he had told Sean last summer—when he’d been adamantly rejecting his parents’ attempts at throwing them engagement parties or whatever else they didn’t actually believe in, when he had been struggling to believe in himself and that he _could_ be different from everyone he’d known growing up—he had never known to be angry with his parents

What his father should have told him following Ian was that if you didn’t hurt for something, you didn’t know its value. Ian had taught him valuable lessons, the things you couldn’t have no matter how privileged you were in life. The things money couldn’t buy. Affection, hugs and kisses, genuine feeling. Everything he’d gotten and survived with because Elliot had loved and protected him on USC’s campus.

And all that had happened in the years following that lunch was that he’d simply drifted apart from his father and mother. 

Yet until Sean he’d found nothing intrinsically wrong with their approach to life. So that in coming fully into adulthood and starting to date, he’d considered Arthur Railings’ work normal.

How his father handled his own exes, normal. How his mother followed up on him and his father, normal. Because it was all in the name of control. And by the time he met Sean, he was entrenched and unquestioningly committed to the Wilson family style of self-protection and preservation.

Sean Jackson was never going to be able to dictate to him when, why, or how to be attracted to him. Forget being in love with him. Between Ian and Sean were almost two decades and a lot of demanding men. He’d become the farthest thing from a novice. And he’d long ago stopped conflating attraction with any deeper emotion.

And yet on meeting Sean Jackson, those were exactly the things he did. Failing on every level, doing things he would never have believed, and doing his best to blame it all on Sean.

*

Ironically, as these things tended to go, they met at a Valentine’s Day charity event. One set about two weeks before the day itself.

The period before Valentine’s Day used to be one of personal triumph for him. Because he had since figured out how to survive it. Ordinarily, almost without fail, from about a week before the day itself, he’d start getting invites from men to “grab a quick lunch.” Because he didn’t consider the day of any importance, in the past he’d just accept without thinking, and find himself the subject of rumors around that period of being in a relationship with this or that guy. Sometimes when he was in fact dating someone else. He disliked the made-up air about the holiday anyway, so with manufactured drama added to the mix, he just started saving himself men-related headaches by disappearing well before the day. Out of town and unavailable for anyone to stake a claim on.

But the year he met Sean Jackson, none of that mattered.

That year, instead of making departure plans for wherever he’d be over a two-day period, he spent the time figuring out how to chase him down. _Him._ The football player who was a walking wet dream. And was evidently gay. Who had lit a fire in him with just eye contact and a smile.

And who was ignoring the business card he knew very well had gotten into his hands.

This type of delay was generally why he didn’t date shy men. Their kind required a psychological makeup and a subtlety of skill in handling he simply didn’t have. Still, how satisfying it would be to catch this one. And how easy to walk away. He’d never seeing him at any function so probably he spent all his time at wherever he played football, and once they kissed goodbye, he’d likely never see him again. 

Everything about it was different, delicious, shiny new. For that he could change his plans for a single Valentine’s Day.

With no reply apparently coming, he’d had Rachel track down the publicist’s number—thank God he’d remembered his name, but hard to believe the guy really wasn’t calling him. What could be the problem? So he’d called the publicist himself, whose excitement at his call was practically vibrating over the connection. And who’d quickly set up dinner at Yamashiro. Her pick. And he’d only called for drinks. Everything was going perfectly. There was no drying out his own excitement.

But from their very first date, nothing went according to plan. God knows, he should have stopped there. _He_ knew he should have stopped there. The lack of reply alone to his business card had scattered him enough. So when the date was full of too many questions, that should have been the end of it.

But he could no more have left that date than he could have gotten up and walked away from his own body.

During that incredibly sexy first date, the restaurant warming and shrinking around them, the football player seemed completely without guile. Friendly, even if in fact shy, but apparently quite comfortable in his own skin. 

Really? Without being out? And showing no traces of public tension or discomfort being there with him? Not that they were spoon-feeding each other their dinners or anything, and he was assuming in the NFL that’s basically what you did was just have dinners with guys. But this guy was making eyes at him from across the table. Subtly, yes, but super comfortably. 

This, from someone who wasn’t out and claimed he didn’t even date in town? Fishy. Maybe.

Questions piled, but he withheld them. Because ultimately, what did it matter what this guy’s game was. The burning hots for _complexity_ wasn’t why he’d spent the last couple of weeks tracking him down. And thankfully, from the scorching looks he was getting, they’d be getting to that soon enough.

Except that . . . they didn’t.

Sean wouldn’t sleep with him.

Okay . . . ?

From there it only got more confusing. But after cutting short a truly ridiculous ending to an otherwise stellar first date, he’d thought he’d made his reasons for bailing equally plain.

But then the calls started.

But . . . he hadn’t _let_ him into his house. What did this man want? More importantly, why was he still staring at his missed calls? Irritated, wanting none of it, he’d let the missed calls accumulate. For every one Sean put in, five others crowded it. Yet whenever he checked his missed calls, it was Sean’s he helplessly stared at.

Well, of course he’d be staring at them. He was painfully attracted to the man and the man had essentially tossed him out of his bed. The minute he did get in bed with him, he knew this nagging interest would vanish. Which had been the point of going on the date in the first place, for goodness sake.

Jesus. He should just delete these.

But of course he didn’t. How often, after all, did he get to meet a real life pro quarterback he could sleep with? Live out some high school fantasies? Not that he had fantasies he walked around with or anything; he wasn’t that sexually adventurous and his sex life probably as mundane as they came. But this guy was the real deal. Sexier than chocolate cookies.

Nevertheless he put his phone down. He didn’t need this. He didn’t find being teased like this exciting. If they were going to have sex, they needed to just have sex, without all these games.

And then the calls stopped. And what a relief.

Because it was already March-ending and he’d already broken all personal records on time spent chasing and trying to date this guy. Nothing in this area of life was supposed to be this difficult. Already he was acting weird and spacey when out with friends. The stopped calls were obviously the universe signaling agreement that he should move along.

Except that . . . . weeks passed . . . and it was all he wanted.

To be irritated.

What on Earth would he have to say for himself? Seriously. Calling him repeatedly like that as if he wasn’t embarrassed by how their date ended. What could he possibly have to say to justify that nonsense? _He_ was embarrassed and frankly stupefied for him. With his looks and sex appeal, he could rule LA’s gay scene, underground though it would have to be. Still, he couldn’t of anyone who would be complaining. Sure he’d have to be much more careful than probably any guy he knew personally, but the guy also had no excuse to not let a person into his damned house after having steamed up all the sushi in Yamashiro all by himself!

He did reel himself in. And let it go. He did. Bothered by his own focus on it, he simply deleted Sean Jackson’s number. Spent the week considering a dinner invitation from a lawyer named Kyle from the law firm a couple floors down in the building. Reading Kyle’s funny, sexy texts, it was a no-brainer what he should do.

But the terrier that was his curiosity had clamped its teeth on his irritation and wouldn’t let go. Wanting answers to the mystery that was Sean Jackson became like an item on his to-do that kept popping up, repeating inexplicably, until he realized he was hitting _snooze_ and not _done._ Uncovering the Post-It on which Rachel had scrawled Sean’s number, he returned the calls. And accepted a second date.

Second time was worse. Without even having come with an agenda, it was worse.

Together again, this time at lunch cliffside on the Palisades bluffs, the tabletop shimmered with an intense a haze of pleasure. It really did. Despite their table being shaded from the noonday sun. But there was no stopping it. All of it was coming from the other side of the table. He had never seen anyone so pleased to see him.

This, after being purposely ignored? The man had to know he _had_ ignored his calls, right? No one was so busy that they couldn’t return a call for a month.

But Sean Jackson didn’t seem to care.

Relaxed with arms wrapped comfortably around himself, the football player seemed to be generating his own force field of contentment. The man on the other side of the table could have been on a causal business lunch with him. But the soft eyes subtly smiling at him were diffused with pleasure so intense he was having to look away every so often. The actually hard to look away from football superstar—so yeah, he’d checked a little; they called him “The Sensation”; who cared—seemed only interested in engaging him in conversation. Telling him about his life. About his sister, about his beliefs. Speaking in a deliberate, unhurried manner. Talking, and talking, and sometimes leaning forward and coloring in a way he couldn’t quite accept was blushing. Eyes on him the entire time, like he was about to froth like root beer. As though the mere thought of him was so _wild._

Him, wild?

Compounding his confusion was the utter disregard for his annoyance. And from the repeated, calculatedly dismissive looks he was giving him, it was obvious he was annoyed. But where he had seen men sweat through their dress shirts at the mere thought of it, this one seemed unaffected. Unmotivated by it.

In fact the only time Sean Jackson seemed regretful was when forced to interrupt their conversation for perfunctory nods at the occasional thumbs-up sent his way from around the cafe. Moments, actually, that pulled him into the realization however momentarily that he was out with a closeted famous person. He’d never dated either closeted or famous. And after returning any greeting, Sean would return his gaze to him and only then would he sense an air of apology. Not for being perplexing, more like for having been interrupted while applying lube on himself and being sorry that had happened.

Worse, Sean ignoring his annoyance didn’t make him feel ignored. Rather he felt . . . absorbed. Like his feelings were being catered to, and in a way that felt—annoyingly—genuine. Sean seemed to be sitting there accepting all the blame for any shortcomings of the date, like none of it mattered compared to the simple opportunity of being there with him.

Then lastly, Sean didn’t seem to care about his last name. 

It never came up. Not once. And frankly, that was particularly hard to swallow.

He had been all over the world and had met just about every kind of man there was to meet—hard, soft, aggressive; kind, timid, insecure; selfish, arrogant, manipulative, and just this side of divine—you name it, he’d men them. From all across the personality and sexuality spectrum. Yet when it came to his father’s name, they all became the same person.

But not Sean Jackson.

Every man he had ever met tripped over the name of Alastair Wilson. And if that man was up for it and it turned out Alastair Wilson’s son was also up for it? Well, he’d be honest, he’d gotten a lot of milage out of who he was.

But not Sean Jackson. Sean was talking to him and not about him. Pulling him gently but persistently into a world that seemed all their own.

Was this guy faking it? All of it—the soft edges around a hard looking exterior, the gentle attitude, the inexplicable self-assurance. Was it some weird, closeted NFL bravado? Was there actually a string of guys in town with nondisclosure agreements yellowing inside their desk drawers?

Christ, who knew. At this point all he wanted was not to be sitting there effectively having a platonic date with the hottest guy he had ever met, never mind what was coming from those soft eyes. Already he’d done more thinking since meeting him than probably with the last ten guys he’d spent time with combined.

So he sat there refusing to respond to whatever effect Sean Jackson thought he was having on him. Yet Sean remained the same. Seemingly wanting _something_ from him so badly, so intensely, that at times Sean would simply stop talking and just sit there staring at him as if he had said something only he could hear.

The whole thing was absurd. The lunch, the . . . perfect . . . loveliness of the man, everything, and he was sure his thoughts were right there on his face. But Sean remained the same, just engaging him, smiling his soft-eyed happiness at him. And it . . . muddled him.

He had already fallen in love with him, and didn’t realize. Preoccupied with being irritated as was. Rusted to dust as those set of pipes were from being unused for so long. But even compared with what he had felt in college, the closest thing to adult love he’d experienced, his feelings for Ian were like lighting a match against the sun. In retrospect, he wished he could cut himself some slack, because it wasn’t farfetched that he hadn’t seen the connection—he’d been in love with Ian in the uncomplicated way that only being twenty could allow, feeling none of this tearing apart of self. At twenty, for him at least, there had been no entrenched perception of self to threaten.

But that would take him many years to understand.

That afternoon, it was all simply coming at him too hard and fast. They were supposed to make out and hold hands but not have sex. Then ignore that one of them was irritated, while making eyes at each other across the table. Not for him, thanks. So he tolerated the lunch until he couldn’t anymore and brought down reality. Or tried to. Look, he told him, he wasn’t interested in teenage dating games. And Sean Jackson, in the line of fire from Alastair Wilson’s son, threw his words back in his face, and shrugged.

—

He hadn’t planned on having sex with Sean Jackson. He really hadn’t. Faced with the distracting impenetrables, he’d frankly given up.

But on the off chance, he’d also been ready. Who wouldn’t be? Teenage jock fantasies could jump overboard for all he cared, the adult him knew what to do with a body like that. Besides, sex was always an all round pleasing way to end even the most awkward of situations. As with a chocolate mint left on a perfectly fluffed pillow, there were no bad orgasms.

So yeah, when it was suddenly happening, he’d been more than happy to finally get physical and be done with it.

But done with it, dazed in a nearly inexplicable way, he suddenly realized he might have made a very strange mistake.

Even now he could sit quietly remembering that afternoon. The first time they had sex. It certainly hadn’t been making love, they’d do that later and he would know the difference. That afternoon they’d had sex like the strangers they were.

But it was sex with a passion that didn’t match the context. Passion of a kind that he had never felt. They _were_ strangers, so what had just happened? 

The act wasn’t supposed to end with the sensation that reality had somehow been rearranged. That he was no longer whole because the center of him, right at his core, had been scooped out. That there was now a space inside him that would never be filled again.

It had felt incredible, freakish, and long after they were done he laid on his side, his back to Sean, thinking those confusing thoughts.

Then he’d made light of the moment, a joke to cover. Especially because Sean, who did look quite happy, nevertheless didn’t seem particularly blown away by the experience. Later he got to understand that being an act of physicality and therefore something Sean was naturally gifted at, Sean wouldn’t have thought anything special of what they’d just done. He would get to see _impressive_ later.

But at the time he hadn’t known, and Sean’s casual reaction had thrown him.

Turning to face Sean, wanting to look stone cold into those eyes, he’d wanted to remind himself that high school sex fantasies or no, he had in fact just slept with a real life normal guy. Any overblown reaction he was having—this very feeling that had him turning and staring into Sean’s eyes—were in reaction to juvenile fantasies and nothing more. Nothing real. 

That grounding, simply put, never came.

It just . . . never did.

Instead, turning back to face an endless blue sky, all around them through the glass walls, a vast lightness that seemed to fill his entire world, he felt even more strange. Like someone had quietly and very subtly pushed a pause button on the world.

Reality gently hushed.

It was the finest, most beautiful sensation he’d ever experienced.

They remained like that for a long time, not talking, and he would never forget the soft, almost absent minded way Sean’s fingers continued brushing his stomach, a feeling so private, so inner, that it felt like he was doing it to himself. Nor the way his stomach tightened, making him wait in fascination to see whether, if Sean lowered his hand to his cock, he would get hard again, something that had never happened to him. Sean hadn’t, but it hadn’t mattered.

By the time he eventually sat up, seated on the edge of the bed and looking over his shoulder, smiling in a forced show of confidence at the big, gorgeous famous person stretched naked behind him, he had long since sank into that deep, far place.

Plunged into an ocean of true self, without realizing it, and without first taking a breath.

—

He stopped talking for a moment, seated forward in the deep-set arm chair, staring at his hands. Confession was proving harder than he’d anticipated. And now that he had started talking, something seemed to be stirring inside him. Something unformed and unfamiliar and which he couldn’t quite pin down.

“When I walked out on you,” he said to Sean. “That first time, it was the first time in weeks I felt I could breathe again. From there it was a straight shot to Oliver at pretty much the first bar I walked into.”

“Oliver . . . inside?”

Yeah, so Sean had been looking at faces. Not only that, learning names as well apparently.

He nodded. Oliver was an attention seeker. And had been exactly what he’d needed that first time. He hadn’t been able to begin explaining what was happening and Oliver had been more than happy to collect all of his attention.

“You didn’t immediately start going out with Oliver.”

The quiet statement made him look up at Sean. Although it took him some moments to process what Sean had said.

No, he hadn’t. After those first six weeks in Malibu he’d need to get Sean out of his system like detox from an addiction. And since Oliver hadn’t particularly captured his attention, there’d been a two-week period of just that before he’d fished out Oliver’s card and let himself get publicly associated with him. But how would Sean . . .

Staring now at Sean’s unmoving form, at the lowered eyes and the arm wrapped protectively around himself, at the finger slowly trailing back and forth through his beard, like a relaxation technique, he froze. 

Clear as day, he heard Elliot saying: _He saw something._

“How would you know that?” he asked.

Sean didn’t answer. But Sean’s jaw was now a hard, tight line against the flushed skin of his neck, and there was a pain there that was loud and sharp, and completely unfamiliar to him.

No, that wasn’t quite true. This was the pain he had seen in Johnston and not fully understood.

“Sean, how would you know?”

“I saw it.”

He just kept on staring at Sean. In disbelief. In denial. _Saw what?_ he wanted to ask. But he knew what. 

“That’s not possible.”

“It is possible,” Sean said. “When you’re going crazy, anything’s possible.”

His eyes had dried out. All the sound in the world seemed to have gone, except for the soft ones from the party coming from the background like a TV left on in the next room.

Before starting to date Oliver, he had done what he felt he needed to, ridding himself of the messy feelings that had had him inside out for six weeks and making him behave like a person he didn’t know, much less recognize. So he had hit up a slew of bars, Blake’s chief of all, taking many comers, surprising even his friends. He had done it like someone on a mission. If Sean had seen any of it . . . 

_But how?_ “Where?” he asked hoarsely.

Sean didn’t immediately answer. Just continued stroking his jaw. If this was difficult for him, it was proving near impossible for Sean. Sean’s finger stopped and pressed against his jaw as if to push the words out. And Sean told him: Parked across the street from his building after having gotten nowhere trying to talk to him.

Closing his eyes, he shook his head. Not possible.

“For how long?”

“Five nights. I’d had to—” Sean stopped talking once more, and returned to stroking into himself whatever calm he was seeking. “For five nights I was very confused.”

“But— not confused enough to—”

But he made himself stop. Because clearly yes. Burning with embarrassment, he turned his face away and quietly said, “Sean, for fuck’s sake. Tell me I'm misunderstanding.”

But Sean didn’t.

He kept his face turned away, his already scalded heart hurting in ways he could scarily believe. And for some reason he was thinking of Anne. About the trust she had given him in her son. About the personal photos she had shown him, given him. Why had she put such faith in him when she didn’t know what he had done. What he actually deserved.

“Why did you take me back?” he asked, somehow making his voice work. “When I came back that June. Why didn’t you— You should have— told me to—”

But he just stopped. Because it wasn’t about what Sean should have done. 

He closed his eyes, still hardly believing what he had just heard. And after which he could say nothing more.

Sean remained a wall of silence, and their drinks sat untouched.

—

They returned downstairs to a party that had long since left them behind. Dimmed lights, guests far gone with each other.

With Sean’s hand in his, he made a steady, if slow beeline for the library. Sean was trailing behind him, this time apparently too speechless to even tighten his hold on him. He was itching to blame Craig, but he knew that would be nonsense. Sean was turning and looking as they passed, as if at scenes from a movie. The cool assurance from earlier in the evening had evaporated like water on a radiator, leaving only a tension that was like a hand mercilessly squeezing his heart.

They were never doing this again.

Inside the library, guests were raptly listening as, in a low, sultry voice, someone was doing a dramatic reading from a book and leaving his audience in stitches. A beat of silence accompanied their entry, in which KV looked over. 

His arm locked around Sean’s waist, he kept them by the entrance.

KV approached, a finger wagging at Sean. “Have better fun next time, you. Or you’ll ruin the reputation of my parties.”

There was a skipped beat, then Sean said, flatly, “Thanks for the invite.”

KV chuckled and turned a quick, alarmed look at him, as if Sean was even worse than he feared. “You’re a terror, you know that?” KV said to him. “I don’t care how horny he made you when you two first met, you should have left him where you found him.”

“Night, KV,” he said, turning and gently pulling Sean with him. “Tell Muller I said same.”

In the warmly lit hallway, a couple was walking toward them, all smiles. The hallway was wide enough for four to pass, five depending on the mood, and thus usually made for a very sexy pass.

Tonight, seeing the gleam in the approaching eyes, he slowed Sean and kept them to one side. They got smiles and regretful looks. Behind the couple, Elliot was approaching. Eyes on him only. 

Without preamble or so much as a flicker at Sean, Elliot said, “Petey says to convey his apologies but he won’t be taking Sean home tonight. Something’s come up.” Loaded look. “I’m sure you can manage?”

“Of course,” he said without skipping a beat, not wanting an inch of air in which Sean tried to visualize why Petey wouldn’t be fulfilling his publicist duties tonight. Or that Craig wouldn’t be available either.

“Later,” Elliot said, and tossed the keys to his Jaguar at him.

He registered the action, and stood there wondering why Elliot suddenly thought he had the coordination to catch tossed keys. But when his surprised had passed the keys had neither hit him nor the floor. Sean had caught them.

Turning a look of surprise at Sean, he was trying to see the moment any of it happened, while Elliot moved on past them. Sean held out the keys. Wordlessly taking them, he glanced over his shoulder at Elliot, realizing some kind of alpha male challenge had just taken place.

This was unreal. His life had become completely unreal.

Elliot had parked next to the walkway wrapping around the property. From high in the sky, silver moonlight illumined the date palms and the parked cars like soft floodlights, making the house and grounds look dreamy. Turning the night outside of KV’s mansion of memories from simply lovely into tauntingly beautiful. As though, two months to their own evening wedding, karma was asking what kind of future he really thought he deserved.

As he beeped the Jaguar unlocked, he heard someone softly calling his name, calling a soft hi. Unobtrusively, because Sean was on that side, he shot a quick look past Sean’s shoulder toward the shadowed palm shrubs. A couple stood smoking cigarettes. The scene was familiar and he didn’t need his memory jogged to know who it was. Or that he needn’t answer. Quiet laughter floated toward them.

Sean got into the car with him seconds behind.

—

It was just after two in the morning and Malibu was dead quiet. Only the sound of the ocean’s rhythmic breathing filled the night air.

Sean had fallen asleep almost as soon as they had gotten in. But he’d come out on the bedroom patio to look at the dark ocean. It was such a terrifying sight, so vast and so dark. But there was a reason why all those psychics and articles on dreams said it represented the human unconscious. He was starting to really get that.

Tonight had been easy. Tonight he had fallen in love and acted badly but without intending to hurt Sean. 

Tomorrow he would be telling a very different story.

*


	4. The Boy Who Drowned

“I told you I’m okay with it. I know what I asked for going in and I know why I asked for it.”

“No.”

“We got a ton of eyes on us at this point and we have a calendar and we should just stick with it. I'm fine being at these parties.”

“No.”

“Holden, look at me.” He didn’t. “Every guy you’ve ever— had any kind of relationship with is looking at me and thinking I'm the— the _one idiot_ in your life who doesn’t know what’s going on. Like I'm afraid to know they exist. If we stop now it’ll look—”

“What, it’ll look things got too close for comfort? At KV’s or at Blake’s? Well, that’s exactly what happened. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I don’t want to be looking at them while I’m getting through this.”

“This isn’t about what you want.”

“Well, then let me rephrase. _You_ don’t need to be looking at them while we’re getting through this. And they sure as hell shouldn’t get to be giving you dirty looks or saying nonsense as if they have any right. They’ve seen enough of you. And you’ve met enough of them as it is.”

“Actually,” Sean said, caustically. “I haven’t. And every time a Joel or Darren or whomever walks up to me in some parking garage, I _am_ the fucking idiot who doesn’t even know who the fuck they are.”

That slowed him down.

And had him withdrawing his hand from inside the dresser drawer. Had him taking a long, deep breath and finally hearing what Sean was saying. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then turned and walked back to the chair where his weekend bag waited, picked it up and returned to the dresser and began putting everything back inside. Just out of the shower and still at the bathroom entrance, Sean had refused to start packing at all.

Bag empty, he dropped it to the floor and closed the drawer, pulled out his phone. And sent a text to Redmond, who was waiting outside, that their destination that morning would be Century City after all, and not Santa Barbara as planned. Then he put his phone away and looked across the sunlit bedroom at his husband to be.

“Sean,” he tried one last time. “This is a bad idea.”

Sean didn’t reply. Just returned to the bathroom.

Dropping his head back, he stared at the ceiling, listening to his movements in there. Blushing once more from a shame that seemed to have permanently moved in.

Maybe it was better this way. Maybe it would make it go faster. Maybe Sean just didn’t want to go somewhere and have to dwell too much on what he was saying.

_Maybe, maybe, maybe._

He crossed into the bathroom, where, clad in a bath sheet, Sean was at the mirror preparing to trim his beard. 

“I— I guess I’ll— see you tonight then.”

“I’ll be there.”

—

That evening they were poolside at the London, at a private rooftop function to put money into a community legal fund. Dress code was shorts and sandals. 

A hotel being semi-public, nothing wild was going to happen, nevertheless Sean in shorts was already causing a bit of a stir. No less in his own head.

The pool was already mostly occupied, including by Jacob, his ex from the governor’s liaison office who at Blake’s had snarked that his feelings for Sean were mere infatuation. Craig and Elliot were also present, though Petey had been called away for whatever passed for an emergency at his office. Craig was in the pool . . . getting his neck licked by some guy with a shaved head. Behind them, Elliot was in a cabana tasting small eats and failing to be impressed by the guy talking to him and trying to impress him.

Sean was opposite him on a chaise, their knees interspersed and lightly brushing, the action causing the hairs on his legs to respond as though he was ever so gently being electrocuted. Sean’s gaze was down, on their knees, implicitly giving him whatever room he needed to resume telling what had happened between them.

When they had first sat down, Sean's gaze had lingered on Jacob. And his heart had skipped because Sean did recognize Jacob. Because Sean probably recalled every last one of them who had behaved so ridiculously at Blake’s. 

He was flooded by so many conflicting emotions, anger at himself and frustration at their situation when their wedding planner was literally counting down the days to their wedding. To marriage. Yet above all he was fighting off the deep fear of what Sean would do when this was all over. What this stabilized, controlled anger meant.

So, with eyes burning into the back of his head, and his on the face he wanted badly to read, he picked up from where he’d left off.

*

So as anyone who had ever seen a Hollywood movie or read romance fiction knew, after their first, amazing sex, natural law dictated that they then spend the next few days holed up together experiencing the perfect romance. Sitting on the living room floor, feeding and making each other laugh while surrounded by boxes of gourmet takeout, candlelight, moonlight, maybe flower petals, depending on how hard the romance sell, and soul singers on soundtrack. Devouring each other with their eyes when not actually having the most amazing, mind-altering sex of their lives. Early part of act two stuff, so cliched and _not likely,_ go ahead and hit fast forward.

Except that it was exactly what happened to him.

One day he was, as Sean would put it, trash-talking their attraction, the next he was grabbing fistfuls of sports company branded T-shirt and leaving palm prints on some guy’s ass for six weeks straight.

It was like a cat tasting catnip for the first time. He didn’t know what hit him.

It wasn’t that he vanished into Malibu immediately. Or even the next day or anything like that. And maybe that gap was what made him think everything was normal. After that first afternoon together he returned home and they went on a few more dates before it got to movie-time. He liked the guy, a lot, he explained lightly to himself. Easy on the eyes, smart and fun. No big deal, even about how strange that first time had felt. They were just dating.

But as from the start, things were just different enough to notice. For instance he had never had to think about where he went on a date. In fact the opposite was true—he could make a call and get whatever he wanted set up. Not so for Sean. Though they went to a couple places in Malibu and the Palisades, those mostly went to those impressively coded places up on Mulholland and in the canyons that were small but not necessarily intimate—the places in town where people went to make secret deals. 

Ensconced in those places, they stared at each other and talked while ordering food, while unfolding their napkins, while picking up their cutlery, while eating. They talked about everything under the sun—movies, TV shows, first concerts, teenage Halloween costumes, childhood pets, reliable antiperspirants, awful books people still recommended, computer operating systems, the gas milage on their cars, how on earth he didn’t have an iPhone—until the evening would wear out like an old and very comfortable leather shoe. Evening after evening, date after date.

Until one evening when he came straight to Malibu after work, when they hadn’t set a date.

That evening Sean handed him homemade pistachio ice cream and made him straddle him in an armchair. Then Sean sat back to listen to him relate the _very_ weird day he’d had at work, about the totally out of left field meltdown one of their investment banker partners had had on an otherwise routine conference call. And which had precipitated an entire day spent reassuring senior executives in companies scattered across the globe, not to mention his own executives, that nothing bad had happened in New York that CNBC wasn’t reporting for some reason. It had been like a chaos bomb dropped in the middle of their day. No one, he told Sean and couldn’t stress that enough, saw it coming.

“You think he was on drugs or something?”

He chortled, helplessly, finishing his ice cream. “I felt like _I_ was on drugs.”

Deep in the armchair, thumbs grinding slow circles into his inner thighs, Sean watched him like a big cat watching a snared canary. And still in his work clothes, he stared feeling overdressed and overheated. The nearly airless haze he’d been in for weeks gently swirled around them, wrapping them up in a world alone. He would never have believed that talking about work could be so . . . Fuck, this was foreplay. Catching his look, Sean slid his tongue out just a little. Breathlessly, he leaned forward and touched the tip of his own tongue to it, sharing the milky, sweet ice cream.

That night he didn’t go home, nor the next, or the one after that. He was simply . . . gone from the world. The ocean of new sensation he had never known nor acknowledged now swallowed him completely.

He remembered Allison’s story about being sixteen and first truly discovering her sexuality. The words had resonated with him because he had been there. It wasn’t about not knowing your sexuality, since whether or not there were names for it, everyone knew what they fantasized about when they closed their eyes. But falling in love was an entirely different thing. There was a person-specific sexuality. And nothing had prepared him for it. To be stripped bare by the man in bed with him, aware so completely of a body and a presence that wasn’t his own. And didn’t belong to any kind of man he identified with. A totally unprepared for experience of feeling yourself burning down.

In Sean’s house, after that night when he didn’t return to the Westside, he absolutely burned down.

—

Scented candles— _scented candles!_ —were obviously pumping aphrodisiacs into the air. Had to be. Same with the unbelievably sweet smell of his skin which, along with his sweat, secreted an aphrodisiac specifically fine-tuned to his senses. Obviously. He knew this. He wasn’t really sure what aphrodisiacs were, but obviously they existed inside this house.

And . . . _aromatherapy?_ He’d nearly died at that.

Then there was the way he was watched. With simple but profound interest, in the sound of his voice, in his movements across the bedroom. In what had just made him laugh. He was full of thoughts and observations and liked getting them out. He expected to get them out. But with his friends. With his parents. And now with him? Of course there was strange magic involved.

Sometimes, sensing the scrutiny, he’d look up over his laptop and catch it from across the room. He’d smile. Once, he’d winked. He wasn’t a winker. Men who winked could deliver on all sorts of things. He could deliver on one, maybe two at a corporate event. But Sean would stare back tolerantly at his probably not very sexy wink, letting him see in his eyes what he wanted, a couple hours after having gotten it. _Getting it_ being something he used to think simply meant sex. But in this house he’d learned that sex was like payroll—much could happen in the time between.

Then there was the tenderness and the touching. The gasping and the kissing, which when had first happened he’d thought were somehow aural leftovers from porn he’d seen. And contrived porn at that. The ones with a theme, in this case romance, which always required a lot of fast forwarding and featured overdone gasping and moaning. His first and sharpest instinct had been sit up and go turn it down. Second thoughts were the realization that it was his voice doing all that shuddering and loud, desperate gasping. It was him digging, rocking and raking, and most unbelievably, killing urge after urge to choke out things he’d never said to a guy.

So, his orgasms. Experiences that ravaged him and left him seeing stars. In the shower, up against the nearest wall, after any random encounter in the kitchen that involved brushing up against each other, after Sean had successfully located his laptop charging cord which was somehow always where he wasn’t.

 _What the fuck is happening?_ he remembered thinking, helplessly laughing, one vivid, sunlit afternoon, up against a wall and laughing because, basically, they were about to fuck to Aaliyah. Struggling to focus and leaking like a faulty faucet, so turned on by the way Sean patiently and attentively waited for him to quit laughing and get in the mood. With something always playing in Sean’s house, by now he should have been used to feeling a literal climax building to everything from Japanese taiko to electronica to bluegrass to hardcore rap, to a ton of Nina Simone and even fucking spa tones. Had anyone told him he could come to spa tones, he would have shown them the door very early on in the evening. Once he’d tried finding Toto’s Africa on Sean’s Spotify account and had gotten a side eye severe enough to make him check that he was still in one piece. But he could have totally swayed to that piece of classic rock and felt himself coming.

But that apparently wasn’t in his stars. So he’d stood there melting, laughing defenselessly and trying not to get his sense of what was sexy mixed up with this crap. He felt _wild._ And it felt crazy good.

And then in the mornings while Sean was out on his runs. Roaming his house whose aesthetics he didn’t like and yet had become the site of magic. Looking out at the grey-blue ocean and seeing not unknowable water, but himself, at peace. 

Feeling himself all the way down to his fingertips, to the tiny hairs on his arms and to the sensitive tip of his tongue. Running his hand through his hair and feeling everything . . . his own scalp, the heat of his own breath, his body which had always seemed to belong to whomever he was with, but now was his to know and touch and excite. His perpetual hunger.

Sean had somehow pulled a stopper that was allowing him to pour himself all over this house.

Why had he ever questioned the way Sean moved through the world when it made so much sense? Why be bothered that Sean wasn’t like anyone else he had ever dated and didn’t fit how he thought a famous closeted gay man should be? What did he know about that? And how could any of that take priority when between them there was so much to explore?

Inside this Malibu cocoon there was nothing to explore but the intoxicating sensations in which he was drowning. He went in to work of course, stopped by his flat and picked up clothes and even took the time to return important personal messages. But effectively, starting the first afternoon he entered Sean’s bedroom until when he fled six weeks later, he had gone up to Malibu and simply never left.

Until the day he did.

—

It went like this. One moment he was in a magic bubble and the next he wasn’t. A transition as neat as a pinprick.

On the evening it happened, the day had already qualified as a typical one for them. Weeks later he’d puzzle over why it never crossed his mind to wonder how they could have gotten so comfortable with each other so fast. But that evening, he was inside the living room having banged his shin looking for his laptop charger. He looked out the sliding doors at the patio where Sean was setting up dinner.

Liking to see the stars as they ate, Sean was carefully, meticulously as was his way, closing up the patio umbrella. Next to Sean’s hip on the patio table was their dinner which included a covered glass platter of the cashew-lemon-meringue tortes Sean had baked for desert. Treats chockfull of the honey-instead-of-sugar— _”This here’s from wheat flour, this other’s got applesauce, and this one’s coconut sugar . . . you ever had coconut sugar?_ —type stuff Sean used in place of normal baking ingredients. Of course he’d had coconut sugar, he had no idea why Sean thought he was a barbarian just because he preferred showing all dessert ingredients equal love.

But suddenly, his eyes were stuck on the platter.

It had come as a surprise to him that Sean could bake. Of course, many people could bake. He’d even once spent a weekend not skiing at a ski resort with an Austrian pastry chef. As close to highlight of his life as he’d come at the time. And that wasn’t even getting to Alvarez, his dad’s chef, who could bake sweet things to make you cry.

But Sean baked _exactly_ the things he liked. Without being told.

How was that possible?

Like, really.

Because as far as he could tell, he’d never said or brought anything into the house that might indicate his preferences. And he didn’t think he talked in his sleep about dessert. So how would Sean have known? By guessing? Because they were soul mates?

He’d occasionally been accused of cynicism, and maybe. But wasn’t this odd?

More importantly, he thought, straightening from the culprit glass side table that had stepped in his way, why hadn’t it occurred to him before now that it was odd? He’d certainly noticed it, in addition to the many other odd things he’d noticed but had just accepted as part of how they seemed to click. The no-stress way in which things that should have been a problem just weren’t.

For instance he’d noticed that Sean might be too patient. And maybe, really, maybe liked him too much. A thing he could sense because the feeling was so, so mutual. It was like someone had come across the teenage diary he’d never kept and had made up a guy that was ticking off “dream guy” stuff he’d never compiled.

Too much patience and maybe liking each other too much weren’t real complaints. Not even real _things._ Shouldn’t there be more? Stronger issues? Men he’d dated had whole pamphlets of complaints against him, some even if having only dated him for a week. But this was—

 _Six weeks,_ he suddenly realized.

_What the fuck?_

Six weeks and he was standing there feeling like it had been six hours?

Slowly, like ice water trickled down his back, self-awareness seeped back in. And suddenly he was conscious of his situation. Which was that he was standing on the edge of cliff and not back somewhere safe, and worse, he was doing it while holding onto a complete stranger, about to bungee jump with him.

As if hitting a button to unmute himself, he suddenly seemed aware of his own thoughts again.

The first, only, and loudest being _Whaaat?_

And out on the patio, candle lighter in hand, Sean too paused. Turning to look across the water, as if hearing something on the far side of the Malibu coast, Sean was still for a moment. Then returned to his task of clicking on the blue chamomile tea lights surrounding their dinner table.

Inside the house, he stared at the man outside who was a stranger to him, wondering how had he gotten here? This wasn’t real. Real life wasn’t like this. _He_ wasn’t like this. If other people fell for this kind of thing, he didn’t. 

How the hell had he followed some guy home and not left in six weeks? Was he drunk or something?

That was all it took. A sudden pinprick and the bubble was gone. Leaving him cold, confused and hyper aware.

That evening, he let go of the stranger.

The problem was, he didn’t simply leave.

To his distress, he found that he couldn’t. His body still craved and his head still spun. So that by the time they’d finished dinner, Sean had taken his quiet for want and had them take a warm shower together, get in bed hot and soft, naked and facing each other. Clutching each other’s hair and thrusting their tongues into each other’s mouths while their bodies ground, their legs hooking and snagging as they rocked and gasped, until they were expended versions of working minds.

He still needed the smell of his skin before falling asleep. Still needed to be wakened to touches and kisses that seemed to be searching for whether he was real. Still needed think a million things into a silence that was a living painting of a man made just for him.

But it didn’t take a week.

Soon he was sliding his hand away before Sean could tangle their fingers, heart tripping so fast Sean would have felt his hand trembling. Showered and dressed before Sean’s return from his morning run, shifting his feet while Sean flicked sheepish look at this fully dressed state. And catching those hot stares over his laptop’s screen, stopping his toes from curling by pretending not to see. Standing when Sean sat down next to him, to direct questions giving fuzzy answers. Until the morning when Sean’s brow began to pinch. And then he left.

Post-It note on the fridge, highway back to the Westside, gone.

—

Sean coming after him would forever remain a low point in his life. Among the most difficult of his emotional experiences.

Years later, in the heat of a fight, Sean would tell him that he was a different person when it came to handling their relationship. That he somehow became more corporate, raising an agenda and sticking to it. He’d considered it a compliment. Proof that he was behaving like Holden Wilson.

But that evening, leaning against the wall by his front door and listening to Sean’s confused, fragmented, disoriented pleading had been like catching a faint voice amid the sound and fury. The emotional confusion had been his.

But not for long.

Almost immediately he had locked himself in a deep freeze to weather the furnace of Sean’s confusion. And in that state he listened only to his own panic. But it was a panic that had been repeatedly subjected to a practiced calm, to the knowledge that he had seen this with his parents growing up, seen his father sail through worse. For many years since had practiced it himself and ultimately it was simple. You just had to be clear on your position and not let emotion infect your reasoning. Pushback on a decision he’d made over a guy wasn’t anything new and he felt no pressure to give in.

Realizing that, he had let Sean talk. Feeling no pressure to approach the cliff’s edge and take a leap back down into a place where he didn’t recognize himself. Why would he? Six weeks ago he didn’t even know this guy beyond an intriguing first date, but now he wasn’t allowed to take a break without it causing the end of the world? He couldn’t return to his apartment without a grilling?

If he had touched Sean, or if he had let Sean touch him, he would have cracked in two, years ahead of schedule. And who knew, maybe years of bad would have been spared. Even though, back then, he hadn’t a single positive family dynamic on which to base a relationship, so how would he have been good to Sean? How would he have handled anything truly difficult.

Who knew. Sean had been more panicked than him and worse at handling it. Sean hadn’t seen his vulnerability and would go years before being able to recognize it. That night, Sean had just been in tatters.

Sean gone, he had showered and dressed and left his apartment, in search of himself.

—

In that state, he met Oliver.

On entering the back bar at the Peninsula on a Tuesday night, he had gotten a familiar, highly positive reaction among men just done from work and grabbing a drink. So far so good. Among his own kind and already feeling his mental state leveling out.

Finding a spot at the bar, he tried calling Elliot, then sent a text. Elliot immediately called back, having ejected himself in the middles of a late meeting to coyly welcome him back to the land of the socially living. Elliot didn’t ask who’d dragged him off for over a month, but said he couldn’t make it. He’d told him to try saying no to his bosses more often, or go work for Petey. It hadn’t mattered that Elliot couldn’t make it. The atmosphere at the bar was already feeling very nice.

The bar wasn’t crowded on a week night, and taking a seat at the bar, he felt very much in the groove. Still on putting away his phone, he’d unconsciously let out a deep, hard sigh. Patrick, the bartender, a budding actor with a great personality and an always dry, straight-faced joke in the wings, smiled at him. “No, I get it,” Patrick said. “It’s hard being you.”

A small laugh escaped him, and he smiled at Patrick. About to put in his drink order, he got a raised finger, narrowed eyes, a nod of recollection. He gave a thumbs up and left it to the pro to sort him.

While he waited for his drink, the good-looking guy talking loudest in his group of friends came over, calling him by name.

He didn’t know him, but that wasn’t unusual. Then Oliver introduced himself. “Ah,” he said, nodding. Oliver had been introduced to him over the phone by the CEO of a card concierge service he used. Oliver, the new manager in charge of the portfolio that included his account, was tall, probably really photogenic, and looked remarkable in a cocktail suit.

By the time Oliver had asked how he was finding their new and more direct approach at service—and it there was anything else he could do for him to please let him know—his drink had arrived. And the tempest inside him had calmed. He knew he was on display, Oliver seemingly talking to him and performing for his friends. Nonetheless it wasn’t merely easy to give Oliver his attention, it felt normal.

Later, sitting next to Oliver in the lounge and listening to him talk, it felt like coming out of a trance.

This was normal. Here was an interested, good-looking guy, to whom he also felt an attraction, talking and engaging with him. And he wasn’t feeling overwhelmed or confused.

He’d overdone it with Sean. Taken his attraction one step too far.

But things were corrected now. All was good. 

Everything back to normal. He was back to normal.

*

So how did it work? How did a supposedly rational and intelligent person fall for their own fiction? 

Well, shock. 

A state which, too late an understanding to have helped him, was possibly among the most misunderstood a person could experience. It wasn’t like how it was in movies or on TV. He didn’t wander around in the rain crying, or sit on his couch eating ice cream. Neither were there reference material from Human Resources or a company policy handbook bullet-pointing the indicators. It simply happened, and then you discovered who you truly were.

*


	5. Oliver & The Return

Two weeks after meeting Oliver, he completed his detox.

While he’d liked Oliver well enough, he’d still been waking mornings feeling as if he’d suddenly stopped taking a hard drug. And so he just returned to what he knew—to a comfort zone of men who knew to come with no strings attached. Who knew their role so well it left no room for him to re-imagine his own.

How had he done it? Easily. After a life compartmentalizing parents who were adversaries, maintaining peace and continuity where little made sense, it only took side-stepping his own feelings. 

Craig rolled with him, Elliot chalked it up to a super horny period. Everyone got one. For him, the results were all that mattered. So while Sean had been at least seeing the beginning of it, he had supposedly been scrubbing himself clean of Sean.

When he thought of that time now, he thought only of one night. Alone in his living room, staring out at the city lights, he’d wondered whether he was in a dream.

Which life was real? The one in which he was a walking mass of joy, glimpsing a constantly evading sense of who he really was, or this one, where he felt no such thing.

But the thought had passed as fast as it had come, and it would be many months, the following offseason to be precise, before he would come face to face with that moment again.

Meantime with his friends and normal life chugging on, things hadn’t felt that confusing.

Therefore two weeks later, on solid ground and in a state of mind he recognized, when Oliver called on the pretext of business, but actually as a subtle reminder that he had collected his card two weeks before, he had answered a couple days later by inviting him as his guest to a function.

—

Oliver was hard-edged, self-absorbed, and with an attitude that sliced like a knife through a piece of cake. Leaving no room for warmth or magic. Or even realism, frankly.

Rather than behaving like a real couple, Oliver seemed to think they should behave like how he presumed Oliver thought power couples should act. It was like being on a TV show. Or, who knew, in maybe the concierge company’s presentations. They were to arrive on the red carpet together. Linger, at which point Oliver would dispense on him any kisses he might have been stowing away. No stealing kisses on the limo ride over. That would have been a waste of publicity. Then at functions, Oliver’s arm around him meant he was going to get smiled at. But not like in a _Hey cutie pie,_ kind of way, which was how he imagined Sean would do it in public, more like, _Hi there, you gleaming bar of twenty-four karat gold._

Oliver didn’t cook, not caring for the mess. And came from an East Coast prep school, an Ivy League business school, had been out since college, was largely apathetic to music of any kind, and considered Alastair Wilson to be among the most important men of the twentieth century. Gavin Wilson, his great-grandfather, was a pioneer and a visionary, it went without saying—also a raging whore, he’d withheld dishing—for retaining the deeds to LA real estate through the land boom and bust cycles when everyone else was panic selling, thereby bestowing generational wealth on his family. 

“Alastair, however, is the true genius of your family’s dynasty. He was able to see the advent of both international commercial _and_ luxury real estate years before even Sotheby’s. He was, I mean . . . ” and on and on. “Alastair’s is absolutely the mind of an industry leader. Meeting him would . . . Honestly, I’d consider that the honor of a lifetime.”

Once, during at an event at which his mother, unable to attend, sent a message that the MC then read to much applause, evidently mostly from Oliver who stood up, Oliver mentioned to him that he couldn’t remember if he’d already told him, but that he was known at the concierge company for being able to handle any contingency.

“I’m known for being able to fit into any circumstance, no matter how pressured or unexpected. It’s not that I want to apply for job or anything, but I really do have the ability to slot in like a chameleon.” A big, very handsome smile. “FYI.”

Because committing to a relationship had been as alien to him as spores from the moon, he’d had no idea why Oliver was suddenly saying cryptic things. But he’d hand it to the men in his orbit. Hardly any of them had been asleep at the wheel. What Oliver had been saying was what it took his engagement to see, especially since Darren had begun dogging his mother’s footsteps. That he could fit into any role Alastair and Cecelia might expect of him.

Several times a week, Oliver would take him out to lunch or dinner. Expensed to the concierge firm, he noticed soon enough. But never at a neighborhood bar or restaurant, or even in West Hollywood. And he could forget adorable secret unnamed eateries on Mulholland where you could later go to plan your wedding. Not for Oliver. It wasn’t like he hung out in sports bars or anything so edgy, but as a local boy, one of LA’s greatest pleasures was hanging in neighborhood bars. But for Oliver, each outing had to be somewhere with a name, west of West Hollywood or north of Santa Monica Boulevard—Beverly Hills or Bel Air. 

Their dates were studied, artificial, mindless. Petey clashed at each passing with Oliver, Elliot and Craig mostly ignored him.

Did he remember sex with Oliver? Barely. The couple of times he’d gone over to Oliver’s, a super modern structure on Mount Olympus, he’d been the opposite of present, welcomed into a house that made Sean’s slabs of concrete look downright cozy. But unlike at Sean’s, Oliver didn’t lower translucent blinds or even appear to have curtains installed. They had sex in Oliver’s vast bedroom overlooking the San Gabriel mountains like exhibitions in an ultra modern art installation. So much for everyone being into sexual intimacy.

Had he minded any of it? Sadly, not even for a moment.

Because from very early on it had become obvious that Oliver was dating Alastair Wilson’s son, and that had allowed him, Holden, to not have to show up. Oliver made him disappear into thin air. A blank space. For retreating from shock, it had been perfect.

In Oliver he had returned to what he recognized to be a grounded, adult relationship. There were no stars in his eyes when he looked at or thought of Oliver. And for those reasons alone he had been grateful for the relentless self-absorption. The superficiality that didn’t permit his participation.

In that first time of getting emotionally thrown clear into space, for how Oliver had been, there had been nights when he could have wept from relief.

—

On a return flight from Tokyo one evening, where he’d gone on an evaluation tour of potential hotel properties, he was staring out the cabin window. Detox now a mere memory and Oliver a mental anchor, he felt like himself again. And the trip and being an ocean away had certainly helped. 

The airplane’s cabin was quiet. The lights were dimmed, the flight attendants attentive. Catching one of their attention, he asked her to please check on the woman with a baby he’d given his first class ticket to, which he didn’t tell the flight attendant, only truthfully explaining that he’d seen the woman in the waiting lounge and that she’d seemed very hassled. The flighted attendant returned with a breathless reply that both woman and baby were okay. The breathlessness had nothing to do with the walk several meters up the length of the aircraft. The flight attendant smiled into his eyes. He nodded and thanked her.

Next to him in the aisle seat was an artfully disheveled looking guy—hair, beard and clothes all perfectly groomed to look messy. Who’d been asleep almost the entire flight. Now the man stretched awake, rubbed his eyes sleepily but very contentedly. Then the man turned to him, staring for a moment, and asked, “Are you a model?”

He looked at him, smiled and shook his head. “Not even close.”

“What do you do? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Not at all. I'm an executive at a real estate firm.”

The man gave a silent _Ah,_ then wriggled his fingers at his clothes. “Shoulda guessed.”

He laughed. “You know what, I think I'm gonna start traveling in yoga pants.”

“I think, um, quite a few people here would probably enjoy that sight. Not to put you on the spot or anything, but if I had your looks, I’d rule the Earth.”

He smiled at him. Then pointed at the oversized matte black portfolio carrier the guy had stashed between the seats in front when they had boarded.

“Are you an artist?”

“That I am.”

And soon he was looking at some of the most breathtaking watercolor paintings he had ever seen. Rian was shown in New York, Caracas, and all sorts of places, and was on his way back to LA after having spent three months in Tokyo, and also happened to be a great storyteller. 

“You seem to have fallen in love with Tokyo,” he told Rian, who laughed.

“Yes! And I also fell in love with New Zealand, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania, and before that Sofia, the Frisian Islands, Istanbul. And don’t get me started on South and Central America. Each time, _every time,_ I think, this is it, this is where I want to be buried. This is magic and I'll never experience anything like it again.”

While he blinked, Rian laughed. Long and deeply amused.

“You no longer think so?” he asked him.

“About what? A world that’s nothing _but_ beautiful and magical everywhere? We could wake up every day and _kiss_ magic if we wanted to.” Rian shrugged. “Each place _is_ unique. But unique is not that rare.”

—

Rian was asleep now. And he was looking out the cabin window at the floor of gold tinted evening clouds. And there was no reason he should be thinking of Sean Jackson. But he was.

Rian’s casually on point sentiments and the serene view seemed to have pushed through his barriers. So that he was staring at the clouds in their perfect beauty when his thoughts gently coalesced. And made him laugh. He could thank Rian for it.

So he’d gone up to Malibu and had a fling with a closeted famous person, and it had been so unlike anything he had ever experienced that he had convinced himself that it was somehow unique. That there would never be another feeling like it. That the world had changed because of it, and not just changed, but changed for him.

Because the man could bake, seemingly only for him, it had altered the tilt of the planet. That he was not only gorgeous but apparently egoless—humble and thoughtful almost to a fault, yet present and confident about his own small world, and definitely not here about a name—because he was all this, the rotation of the Earth itself had stalled.

It was funny. Stupid. An obvious holdover from his overexcitement in first meeting him, and the fervor with which he had chased him.

But it was no longer Valentine’s Day, or even February, and six weeks was easily among his top five in relationship duration, not even counting the preceding two weeks he’s spent doing the chasing. So Sean could at least have that.

But Rian had thankfully splashed some overdue cold water in his face. Infatuation could happen for any place, thing, or anyone, at any time, but it took a very naive person to believe that it was unique. And he was anything in this world but naive.

So that, thankfully, was that.

—

Except that . . . four weeks passed . . . and he was now listening to Oliver speaking and hearing less and less of what was being said. A sad fact that took Oliver well over a week to notice.

It was just that . . . 

Well, lately when he thought of Sean Jackson and his crazy overreaction to him, it got harder to wrap up the recriminating and leave the mental space. 

A space which was suspiciously alluring, encased in glass and overlooking a serene grey-blue ocean.

Quieted there, he’d begun wondering . . . Having had his own moment of clarity on the flight, maybe Sean too was over their drama? Sean had to be. By now he’d been gone almost as long as they’d been together, so it would be like reconnecting with a practical stranger. Who could have drama with a practical stranger?

Just a thought.

But he kept flicking at it, like a sore tooth. Having it persist through Oliver’s see-through looks at him at the caliber of guests in whatever room they were in. Surviving the PDA kisses. And enduring enough showy, Bel Air dining, “You’ve got sauce on your lip, babe, lemme get that for you” moments to last a lifetime. Petey called him babe and could get away with it; Petey could call you a red nosed reindeer and you would not only find it okay, but maybe even hot; but anyone else doing it with any amount of seriousness was just funny to him.

Through it all, he pondered what time and distance might have effected on Sean Jackson. And deep in thought as he was, which felt very natural, the uniqueness of the moment didn’t so much as register until about a week later.

—

When his attention for Oliver finally started disintegrating, could it even be surprising that it did so along the most fitting form: Dessert.

They were at Nobu the evening it started, where he’d actually been quite strongly anticipating dessert. The restaurant had an always perfect anko that came on a lovely hunk of honey toast. It was like the perfect French kiss inside your mouth.

What happened that evening was that Oliver interrupted himself on hearing him make the order, and after the server left, leaned in and started talking about how surprising it was that he ate dessert.

“How do you not gain weight from it? Or does your trainer have you on a special workout regime? But even so, why would you eat dessert? It’s not exactly great for you however you look at it. It’s nothing but refined sugar.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d ignored this particular line of conversation on date, or if pressed, found some way to dismiss it. But for whatever reason, this time it irked. It suddenly felt like a violation of his privacy. Dessert was off limits now, because— well, it just was. Especially to someone he was only dating. An excitement and warmth now came with it, a smell and a sense of . . . presence. And it all seemed top personal to discuss now.

He sent the order back.

A couple evenings later a truly heavenly trio of mini pavlovas suffered the same fate. Drowning in some award-winning Burgundy cassis, he could practically hear them pleading to be consumed, to be loved, and asking why not. And his stomach determinedly, acidly, tightening up and saying no.

No to the time and place, no to the circumstance. He left his plate untouched. And Oliver wisely said nothing.

The third time was at Craft and it resulted in a minor scene.

At this point in their relentless dinner-dating, he was profoundly missing no-socks and loafers nights with Elliot at Dan Tana’s, scarfing giant plates of spaghetti carbonara and getting soaked to the gills in red wine, and getting kissed, kissed, kissed.

Still, not being able to eat dessert at Craft was very bad. 

But staring at his latest victim, two succulent little bars of peanut butter, brown sugar and honey oats, he couldn’t. Heat suffused him so much the back of his ears were burning, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that the dessert had been baked specifically for him—which technically they had been, but context—after which a warm shower would follow. And when, soft and warm, Sean started talking about anything at all, it was like being floated off the bed.

And so these too proved impossible to eat.

Catching their server’s attention, he gestured for the plate to be removed. “Certainly, sir,” the server said without missing a beat, whisking the dish away. Yet as the plate disappeared into the kitchen, his eyes were on it. Lowering his gaze, he froze as the pastry chef was suddenly coming out of the kitchen toward them. Next thing, the chef was at their table profusely apologizing and asking what had been remiss about the order, forcing him to stammer his way through an explanation made of tissue paper.

By the time the chef nodded, smiled and left, even Oliver had become aware that something was off.

From across the table, in the romantically lit dining room, Oliver leaned forward and met his eyes with a smile. It was an apologetic smile. Oliver _was_ very good looking, possessed of a warm smile when he bothered with it. Reminding him of his mother of all things.

“I should never have commented on your dessert habits,” Oliver said, low tones. “That was very rude of me. It’s really just that you don’t seem the type. I mean look at you. How can you eat so much sugar and still stay this beautiful.” Oliver smiled seductively at him. “Maybe I’m just jealous.”

He shook his head and murmured something response-sounding.

And Oliver tilted his head, as if trying to get a better look at him. “You know there’s so much I don’t know about you. You don’t speak much, so it’s hard to penetrate your shell.” Then with a lifted eyebrow, a cocked smile, “Thank God for bed.”

The problem persisted. So he just stopped ordering dessert. 

Until the afternoon when he could no longer pretend he wasn’t looking at one man and thinking of another.

—

The after it happened was of course lunch in Bel Air. At the Hotel, actually. Half dreading, half hoping to see his father and the retired set—that way he could just say, _Hey Oliver, there’s your new boyfriend_ and ditch them both—he’d simply nodded when Oliver excused himself to use the men’s room. Oliver came over instead, stopped by his chair to drop a kiss on his lips, lest God forbid, someone in the dining room get the impression that it was just a business lunch.

After those moves, while Oliver was on his way, he was on his phone texting Sean.

Staring at the message delivering, he silently encouraged it along. When delivery was confirmed he simply put away his phone. It didn’t feel like anything momentous had happened. Nothing so natural feeling could. Neither did he breathe a sigh of relief. Why would he, when _sighing_ wasn’t the kind of relief he was looking for.

He seemed back stuck in a space in which he couldn’t breathe unless with him. Like he didn’t know who was sitting here when Holden was with Sean Jackson.

Fine, so wanted to see him again. Just to say hi and find out what he’d been up to. A guy that genuine deserved a genuine friend. And that, he knew he could be.

Honestly, he couldn’t even remember why he’d been in such a panic all those weeks back. So he’d had an intense attraction to him, so what? What was so unusual about being attracted to a super hot, super nice guy? He’d overreacted, that’s all. He really had. It was frankly kind of embarrassing. 

That whole thing, of Sean being able to guess his preference in dessert, his reaction and everything, had been a mess. Not at all like him. And he’d apologize. All he needed to do was ask Sean how he’d guessed, if it was really that important. This time he’d handle things better. He really did like him. He liked _so_ much about him. And being with him felt— well, he laughed a lot. They both did. And he liked that.

So this time he’d handle it.

And he ignored the faint, clanging alarm desperately going off inside him.

The strange thing about life changing moments was that they never announced themselves. Didn’t change the tint of the world, didn’t suddenly give you more acute perceptions. They tended to happen in the middle of reading an email, or watching an episode of TV, or having dinner. In his case, because, Oliver, they were having dinner.

Anyway, Sean of course ignored his texts.

For days. For almost another week.

A screenful of read receipts and nothing. He had never been so sexually aroused by nothing. At home alone in bed, he laid on his back staring up at his phone’s screen, practically in heat. Imagining what Sean was thinking looking at his own phone screen. Perhaps doing so while at that super special, vegan only, _don’t you dare come here in corporate wear_ neighborhood supermarket Sean shopped at. Having to put down his basket of hand picked, individually kissed vegetables to pull out his phone and read the messages that had just dinged in. There would be frustration, understandably, and probably even anger. Though maybe not, since he had no actual idea what made Sean angry or what sustained it. They hadn’t been together long enough to get into any of that.

What he did know was that time had passed and heated emotions should have cooled, so a reset. And also that it was dead sexy texting with a guy he’d had such unforgettable times with. Well, not texting _with._ But dead sexy nonetheless. And if Sean so much as sent an emoji in reply he’d probably be sending Oliver an overdue text and showing up in Malibu that night.

He wanted to laugh again and feel it deep inside. _Deep_ inside, as the beginnings of an arousal that defied everything he believed about himself. Who was Holden when he was with Sean? He wanted to feel that again more than he could express.

For days his thoughts ran like that—selfish, trance-like, in brand new territory and unable to recognize it as such. Often done with Oliver talking on the other side of the table. He did listen, even if only partially. The dessert fiasco moment at Craft seemed not to have happened as far as Oliver was concerned. Nevertheless he was withdrawing and even Oliver couldn’t see it wasn’t happening.

And so one evening at drinks while Oliver talked with a colleague who’d come over to say hello, he was scrolling his trail of one sided texts, to see whether Sean had replied and he’d somehow missed it, when his thumb suddenly stilled over his screen.

A feeling had come over him he couldn’t pin down. And then he did.

This was the first time he had ever gone back to a guy he’d spent time with.

This was not an acknowledgment of receipt of a text because Alastair had just made his latest ex’s dream come true career-wise. This was him in a second round of chase. 

The realization him stopping mid-scroll in awe and he raised his eyes.

Seeing his look, Oliver’s colleague glanced at him and evidently misunderstanding his expression, lifted a hand with a cordial smile and said he’d wrap it up.

He dropped his eyes to his phone, savoring the rush of exhilaration.

And he felt no worry, no need to hit the breaks. And there and then convinced himself that it was because he had taken a break. Pushed back when Sean had tried to “rush” them, and in doing so had managed them. A conclusion that proved among the most erroneous he made early in their relationship.

But when he did finally glanced up at Oliver, and Oliver met his eyes, they both knew that something had changed.

—

Another week into unanswered texts from Sean and he texted Oliver that it had been fun.

He’d texted more words that that, but that had been the message. Oliver never texted back.

Yet for two months after he was having to answer questions about Oliver from men he’d never dated. Including KV. Oliver hadn’t taken being broken up with well. “He’s saying he was sure it was different between you two,” KV told him at some Hollywood party Petey had invited him to, at which KV kept trying to hook him up with some actor. “That you’d give him these look.s Are you sure you’re not regretting breaking up with him? It’s not like you to pine.”

Had he cared even a little, he would have asked why he’d be regretting or pining. Oliver was a normal guy no different from him, and there was no reason anyone couldn’t end a relationship with either of them. And different? Did people even know what _different_ was? He didn’t bother responding to any of it. Aside from never discussing his private life, and definitely not about to start with Oliver, he really had no appetite for relationship drama, real or faked.

And by then, he’d long since returned to Sean anyway.

Which was the real cause of the speculation over his breakup with Oliver. Because as far as it looked, and until Sean returned to San Diego late that summer, while Oliver played out his reality show—and Oliver’s work account not very mysteriously acquired an additional, very lucrative client— _he_ appeared to have become celibate.

He entertained no overnight guests, was hardly seen in bars, didn’t even seem to be in the same social circles anymore. So apparently he was pining. Never mind what anyone actually knew about him, there had to be a first, right? How else to explain his sustained inability to socialize?

For this second round of disappearance, his friends still made no connections beyond the obvious conclusion that he was seeing someone secret on the side. It had been early days still and there hadn’t been a picture forming to pique their interest.

Arthur Railings had also called. Could his office suspend the Oliver Mercant file? Arthur-speak for confirmation that he had ended a relationship. And signal that his father had completed his own part in Oliver’s send-off, even if the new account acquisition hadn’t already indicated that to him. He said yes to Arthur. And officially, he was done with Oliver.

Did he have anything particularly positive or negative to say about Oliver? Not really. Ultimately, Oliver had been a nice enough guy.

But he could point to Oliver as the one he had been with when, for the first time, he had realized that Sean was different from the rest of them.

He could say that Oliver had been the first stop into his slide of a crisis of identity.

*

Whenever he ended a relationship his father would start calling. It started after Ian. And although he prided himself on being a realist, it had still taken him years to catch on. Neither had he known about Arthur being involved for almost as long. And yet on discovery, he’d frankly had no reason to resist. Until Sean, it had never felt personal.

So after a breakup he would get a call for a meal, and he would head into Bel Air. It was never anything aggressive, which his father could definitely be. Instead it was more like sitting through a parental _gazing,_ like the scrutiny that happened after declaring a major in college. Until Sean, until he got engaged without informing his parents, the meal after a breakup had been painless. His father content just hovering the perimeters, asking completely tangential questions while watching for his responses. He had always wondered whether his father thought he’d break down like after their lunch with Ian or something. As if he was still twenty. Irony of course being that his dad had only had to wait a couple more years until Sean and Ben Hanan’s boat.

So anyway, when he got the call to have breakfast after Oliver, he went.

Alastair looked him over. It happened while they discussed the firm. Sometimes, if questions strayed and got a little too personal, he would ask about his father’s latest girlfriend or, as relevant, wife. Which would usually steer them back to safer waters.

He got asked if he was all right, he said yes, got a hug and a kiss, and returned to the Westside.

*


	6. The Crisis & The Fall

When Sean didn’t reply to his texts, he showed up in Malibu. Obnoxious? Yes. Entitled? Tell him something he didn’t know.

He had felt he knew what they both wanted. Felt it even while knowing that Sean wasn’t like the men in his social circles. That he _didn’t_ actually know what Sean might want.

Worse, it didn’t even occur to him to consider what his walkout might have been like for Sean.

Since their talk that night after their fight in Johnston, however, he hadn’t needed to imagine. Sean had told him what that period had been like for him. Waking up in the morning and still finding him gone when such a thing made no sense whatsoever. When there had been no argument, no fight, no breakup even. He could add to that the mind cyclone that must have been Sean witnessing his pointless promiscuity, a piece of information Sean had skipped even on that January night.

What Sean did tell him was that he had been on a photoshoot that period and living a bad dream. Not because the shoot was stressful, but because Sean had been staring at his texts and tearing himself up over what was painfully confusing and impossible to understand. 

So yeah, while he had been exciting himself over thoughts of Sean receiving his texts, Sean had been in an emotional nightmare over them.

What had he done wrong, had been the question agonizing Sean’s thoughts. What had made a man so perfect for him, so clearly in love like him, get up one day and walk out? Had he come on too strong? Was he just clueless? He had never dated in LA, this city where many gay men’s egos came to die. Was he really just some backwater hick who had caught an enchantment for a long moment and stupidly thought he had won at life?

“Your texts caused me a lot of grief,” Sean now said.

He glanced sideways at Sean, whose eyes were on the stage in front. Lowering his eyes back to the white linen of the round dinner table, he nodded. “I know. And I'm so sorry, Sean.”

Sean was quiet.

Tonight they were at a sit-down function. Sean was next to him in a rare three-piece suit, now staring toward the stage which was occupied by award recipients for philanthropic work. At some point in the evening he himself would be up there receiving an award for his family, but that was much later. Alone with Sean at the table, which his friends had located in a corner of the hall, and initially occupied but had since deserted, they were more or less secluded while he talked. They’d also picked at their dinner mostly, and now sat not bothering with it.

Seated side by side, they were close enough that Sean had his arm along the back of his chair. And while he wanted to place his hand on Sean’s thigh, or take Sean’s free one, he couldn’t make his hand do it. It was beyond strange to be talking about other men to Sean, to give details no matter how vague about his past relationships. He had for the past year insisted to Sean that these men should never come between them, that _he_ wasn’t going to allow even their names to exist between them. But it was happening now, and it did not feel good. Kyle, Foley, Michael Granger, and Herc were all somewhere in the auditorium. And had one by one sought him out earlier in the evening. And even if they weren’t right now still giving him looks, he was still carrying the varied ones they’d already delivered.

“By the time you started texting me,” Sean continued. “I’d just started dealing with you leaving.” Sean lowered his eyes to the table now, but was avoiding looking at him. He could see it. As if he was still trying to protect himself. And it made his heart ache.

“I knew you’d come back. Wasn’t even a question in my mind. But I guess knowing and experiencing are two very different things.”

That he’d known. That, he’d banked on.

The other thing he’d discovered in Johnston, not through Sean but from Kay, was that he was the first and therefore the only relationship Sean had ever had outside the NFL. 

So to strip any sugarcoating, basically he’d forced himself into Sean’s private life, just to soundly prove everything Sean feared about meeting someone outside of the relatively protective and, necessarily, supportive world of closeted NFL players. The only world Sean had ever known as a gay man.

From the start he’d known they had no business being together. Of course he had known that. But having been told all his life that he could strive for and get anything he wanted, talk less of the attention of men who shared or even half-shared his sexual orientation, he’d been certain to his core that Sean was his to have. Whatever had been going on with Sean was incidental to his needs. He had shown up in Malibu.

—

Before driving into Malibu he’d stopped at the flower shop he frequented and picked up something whose message he’d known Sean would recognize. Sean apparently understood “the language of flowers,” a phrase the florists had been using for years but which he was sure was so totally rubbish and a made-up selling point of the industry. Still, people who liked flowers had agreed on it, so he had always heeded their advice.

A single pale blue Camilla rose. That’s what he had gotten. A symbol of a beautiful thing, he was told, and so to his hopes a symbol of what he and Sean had experienced together.

Rose in hand, but at his leg, he had pushed Sean’s doorbell, to which he had the entry code but didn’t use. No matter his sense of entitlement, he wasn’t ill mannered enough to force himself on something he might no longer actually be entitled to. He was at least prepared for that. Anyway Sean’s security setup had video and Sean would see who it was.

There seemed no time between pushing the doorbell and the door yanking open.

Sean looked stunned.

Slowly, he twirled the rose by his leg. Sean’s eyes dropped to the rose, but came back up at him without a blink.

For several nights following his disappearance from Malibu, he had replayed his time with Sean, and remembered how, often, he’d imagined that only swearing extremely loudly behind closed doors would ease the tightness in his chest.

Now he was seeing that look on Sean’s face. Confusion, bewilderment and surprise fighting all over his face.

Rose twirling, like a charm being deployed, he said, “Hi.”

He remembered how Sean had gotten him to the couch. The grip on his suit vest and being pulled forward, stumbling over his feet and falling against Sean’s body. The way it had felt to bump into him. Then time skipped and the next thing he knew he was getting his lights popped.

It had been a welcome back that had hit the spot. How often did he use that phrase in describing sexual satisfaction? Never. Not even for their first time, since back then there had been no spot to hit. He hadn’t yet developed a yearning that needed handling. That night, it got handled.

—

Lying on the couch afterward, soaked in Sean’s sweat and everything else, he had felt . . . good. God, had he felt good.

Even after Sean denied him entry into his bedroom for all the kissing and cuddling and everything else he so badly craved, it had still taken hours to come down. And only then was he cleared headed enough to conclude that Sean should have slammed the front door in his face, not just the one to his bedroom.

And he didn’t leave in the middle of the night like he should have. He even remembered hoping that they would wake in the morning to discover that their attraction had cooled. That for the first time having cycled this experience of magic and breakup, regret and return, he would find the whole thing to have just been one extended gut check. And he would realize that Sean was really no different than anyone else he had dated. That it wasn’t only Tokyo. That he could shower, figure out something to say, and be on his way.

Conversely, that his behavior had irreparably tarnished the shine between them and Sean would realize he was nothing special. And having gotten out whatever latent anger, Sean would be over his nonsense and do his own version of finding something to say—offer him breakfast and a place to shower—but after which he’d need to disappear from his sight.

The very least they should have done was have a sober conversation the next morning. Sean should have demanded an explanation and overt contrition. Shown him the door if he argued back. And he should have apologized for having acted like an ass.

But nothing played out that way. They were both wrong in how they moved on from that moment and it set the tone for years to come.

In his defense, he truly hadn’t understood that Sean really was that different. That he wouldn’t show up in the middle of the night and to find some other guy in his place. In his determinedly shallow way of thinking, he’d assumed that being a hot guy in the NFL would offer Sean a literal roster of men to call on at any time, even if just to text for some comfort. It had been impossible to imagine that there was just him.

But honestly, would he back then have behaved any differently had he known? Probably not.

—

Sean _was_ prickly for a couple of days. But he gave him space, asked more than once whether he was okay with him being there. To which Sean gave nothing more than soft grunts in response.

Senses honed, nonetheless, he caught the moment when Sean took a deep, quiet breath as if letting something go. As if accepting some deep unpleasantness about life.

And because he’d been waiting for just that moment, he’d put away his laptop and declared that he was done working for the day and did Sean want to catch up on a show.

Just in from drinks with someone somewhere, Sean had come to him on the couch. And he’d made him lie between his legs, Sean’s back to his chest, wrapping his arms around him. Sean rested his head in the crook of his neck and was very quiet. He kissed Sean’s face, his beard, kissed his neck, until Sean was warm and melting into him.

That night he was let back into the bedroom. And it seemed that all was right once more with all the unique and magical locations in which to fall in love with the world.

—

Except that of course it wasn’t.

Weeks back in, he was sitting at Sean’s dining table, legs outstretched and his ankles crossed, talking. He couldn’t even remember what he’d been saying, but it had been eliciting soft grunts from Sean who was in the kitchen frying them up heaps of Canadian bacon in rosemary, chives and basil, in some seed oil that supposedly would make his skin glowier or his hair more silky, as part of a huge, calorie-depleted, post-sex brunch.

Meanwhile he was still in pajama bottoms and hadn’t so much as run a hand through his hair, forget brushing it, _or even showered for that matter._ His nipples still hurt in the best possible way, his toes a little cold from the morning ocean air on the very unwelcoming granite floor which he still disliked but couldn’t seem to care.

Being back was bliss. Back inside this house, wrapped inside those arms, once more experiencing things he’d merely been emotionally subsisting on for nearly two months.

It was while he was talking that some part of him slowly pulled back, far enough to objectively watch them together. And brought him a clear realization.

They had _missed_ each other. He had missed him. In his case, even more than he had missed _dessert._

He had pent up all these things to tell him as though knowing he would soon be sitting right back there. He couldn’t put this person that came out for Sean back in the bottle. His heart skipped and he was in physical pain when he thought of walking away from him.

But because he had already gone through the jolt that had chased him off the first time, that morning’s awareness didn’t feel . . . as threatening. He still felt everything from April—disassociated, _compromised._ But this time he knew at least to conduct himself better than he had.

There had to be a proper way to approach this. Thinking back on the last time he had felt anything physically overwhelming like this, was at fourteen with his sexuality blooming like a wildflower.

Back then, wanting to make out with every cute boy he came across, he had invite every last one of them home with him. And so he’d have his dad sitting him at the dinner table, lecturing on how and where to be subtle with his sexuality, even though it had still taken him a while to truly grasp that homosexuality was indeed a form of sexuality not shared by every boy he liked. He had simply presumed that every boy liked to be touched and kissed and smiled at. And that morning in Sean’s kitchen, he remembered how much he’d also liked being touched and kissed, and smiled at. Made to laugh. And really, how easy it had been to get a lot of boys to do that.

But he wouldn’t be fourteen forever, had been the point his father had been making. Which, granted, was very true. And his father had been there through the years to continue the lectures, on how to stay in control in a world run by men. How sex and sexuality took a back seat to power, which was a thing all on its own. How to properly, and always confidently, exploit and manage his “private interests.”

Well, he had grown past such lectures, but that Saturday morning watching Sean at the gas cooker, he felt very alone in this. In a very abstract way, he missed his father’s advice. Who could he talk to about this, about being back in this house when he shouldn’t be. When he hated the thought of being laid claim to by _anyone,_ if for no other reason than to spare him a messy breakup.

He could have talked to Elliot, but words were needed to tell even the person closest to you what was going on with you.

And so it was just him. And he was trying. He couldn’t be _in love_ with him. Love was some thing that happened to teenagers and incurable romantics and people with big agendas on life. He was none of that. He had seen his own parents in the pages of magazines, young and beautiful and in love. If that didn’t last and in fact got incredibly dirty, then what was love?

Even having paused, now, having muted the words in his head and just staring at him, even in that slather of soft silence Sean didn’t seem to find anything wrong with the moment. There was simply a silence in which Sean turned down some flames and struck up others, checked on whatever was inside the oven, eventually turned and looked at him from the hunks of bacon sizzling on the cooker, and as naturally as you please, said, “I’m listening.”

And Sean was.

Sean was listening to everything about him. Absorbing him always. Even after what he had just done to him. Sean seemed to be accepting him for who he was. A truly scary realization when he himself no longer had that information.

So what was different about Sean, he began wondering, staring at him. Was it because he was in the closet? Was it exciting because it was so secretive? He knew men who got off specifically on dating men married to women, a wedding ring on the finger triggering a cascade of kink and excitement. A little too interesting for him personally but . . . maybe this was his version of it?

He didn’t know. He couldn’t resolve it. But it turned out to be another brick in the wall that when the time came he would try to put up against Sean Jackson.

Somehow he finished what he was saying that morning. But by July ending, another six weeks, he was avoiding looking directly at the person in the mirror. That person who looked so desperately happy just listening the voice in the bedroom on the phone arguing with he presumed his publicist about some scheduled commitment. It always amused him overhearing Sean with his management because the issues were discussed with enough gravitas to make Sean seem like a general at the Pentagon. Whereas if asked what that was all about, it would be about getting his photo taken with deodorant or something.

By the time he caught himself not looking at his own reflection a few more mornings in July, however, he acknowledged that that faint alarm that had gone off when he’d first texted Sean while with Oliver was now back. As a constant, low-level buzz.

What was to happen next? He couldn’t leave. He’d tried that and it had just been a countdown to returning. But having been back and stayed for nearly two months, was he giving Sean the impression that they were headed somewhere now? And Sean was about to leave to go play football. What was to happen then? Was he still Sean’s secret boyfriend? Was that what Sean wanted or expected and was it something he could tolerate?

Questions stacked, and soon enough it was taking real effort not to give into a rather different form of panic than the one in April. He couldn’t run, so he needed to control this self. This person who was going to get him into trouble and who might inadvertently wreck Sean’s life.

Sean saw the panic, as low tension as it was. In the quiet way Sean absorbed the frequent looks he was now casting his way. That was when, so very carefully he’d thought, he had put out his rules for how they would interact come the fall.

It didn’t even register with him how ridiculous and desperate he sounded. In his head it sounded firm and clear of doubt, something like, _So, come summer’s end, this is over, obviously. And I'll see you when you get back in January?_

But the words were like dead weights in his chest. Not coming up. Only tripping his heart harder. Eventually he did get them out, and what he said was: “Listen, we’re good, right? We can stay in touch while you’re gone— if you want. I mean, I don’t know . . . “ and then like losing a fraction of time had skipped over what he had been about to say because even though he wasn’t conscious of doing it, his brain apparently had refused to plug another guy into Sean’s life. He had been about to say _I don’t know if you date other guys while you’re gone playing football._ Instead he said, “But— we’re not _together,_ of course. I mean, how could we be, right? Also phone calls’ll probably be easier if you texted first, ahead of time. It’s just better that way. I’m sure you understand. Of course you understand. Obviously you do, right?” Without fanfare, Sean broke it off the next morning.

Standing in the middle of the living room, about to leave for work, he stared in surprise at Sean who was setting up his laptop and some folders on the dining table.

Sean glanced up at him. “We’ll see each other again.”

 _When?_ he wanted to ask, stoping himself because it would have come out as a shaky cry.

Nodding, he had carefully gone over and kissed him on the cheek. He didn’t say goodbye, didn’t say have a nice time playing football, or whatever he was supposed to say under the circumstance. He just turned, so blanked he stood staring at his brief on the recliner in front of the TV, wondering where his brief was.

He went over and picked it up. Then he turned to Sean again, pressed his lips into a tight line and nodded. Turned for the door.

Sixteen days later, toward the end of the month, Sean texted him. _I’m back to San Diego in a week or so. I’d love to see you. Either way, wanted to say goodbye._

He was pressing Sean’s doorbell before the ink on the text had dried, a bouquet of red and purple fuchsia dark-eyes under his arm and a hopeful look in his eyes. 

Sean opened the door, smiled, and asked whether the flowers were for him. And then let him in.

The week-or-so was just perfect. He took the rest of the work week off and they it spent locked away. White hazy mornings, long afternoons, quiet, conversational nights. Falling asleep kissing, kissing while asleep, waking up with their lips brushing.

The day Sean left, in the early evening, he stood with him at his front door doing what he could to break off covertly staring at him. He was so gorgeous, so sweet, and it was so . . . weird to still be thinking about the same guy almost half a year in.

He had returned because for sixteen days he had scrolled through so many “Hi, Holden” texts and hadn’t responded to a single one. Getting kicked out had turned out to not feel as comfortable as making the decision to walk out.

To survive the moment, he made a joke, saying that Sean must have spiked the blueberry mojito he’d made him that evening. But the real joke was on him, he thought, glancing behind him at the front door. How indignant he’d felt six months ago at not being let into this house. Well, here he was, really _in_ it.

Standing close, Sean stroked his arm, such sweet need in his eyes even after their turmoil almost from day one. “I’ll miss you,” Sean said. “Every day.”

“Promise?” he quipped, his heart skipping hard, painfully, even then trying to escape. Then he held him by his arms and pressed a kiss into his beard, then one on his mouth, and whispered, “Bye.”

And then he left.

And told himself to stop.

Stop seeing his face. Stop seeing his eyes. Stop hearing his quiet movements around his house as he made him dinner. Stop feeling his arms tighten around him when he showed him so much physical love, instead of just letting them fuck like the strangers they actually were. Stop hearing his brief repressed laughter that gave away that he didn’t seem to have any defenses when it came to him.

But most of all, stop thinking his name.

—

And he did it. He stopped thinking about him.

Denial turned out to be a powerful yet simple enough trick. By simply pretending he was still the same person as before he met Sean Jackson, he discovered he didn’t need to access any deep emotion. And combined with Sean’s actual absence, denial got the job done.

Without Sean around there was no pull to go up to some seaside community when he didn’t even like open water. Presto, the tugging sensation had stopped. And like a fire with no fuel, his emotions died down.

Until the Fox Sports interview.

*


	7. The Fall

On leaving LA, Sean had initially sent texts. _I miss you, I love you . . ._ and when he hadn’t replied the texts had stopped. It wasn’t the first time he was seeing the words _I love you_ on his phone nor was it the first time Sean had said the words. Nevertheless his nerves reacted like his life was in danger, firing off warning signals to stop reading. So he had. And the unread badge count on Sean’s messages had steadily increased . . . until one day it stopped.

Then one afternoon, while at a sports bar with Elliot and a friend of Elliot’s who was into sports, he looked up at the TV as Sean suddenly came onscreen. 

At first he thought something had happened outside. Like a car crash or something. Because suddenly the world was screaming and shouting in his ears. But it hadn’t been a car crash, it had been an absolutely _wild_ love breaking over him. In retrospect it was hilarious, wonderful. But at the time he had been quite startled.

Elliot, whose back was to the TV and was talking to Marcus, sent him a few worried glances. While he sat there pretending there wasn’t probably a weird expression on his face and telling himself that the crack of thunder that had gone off inside his head had really been about other things—lust, fresh novelty, simple want. As if any of those things were excluded from love.

Either way, that had been it for his prolonged state of denial. 

The following evening he met Kyle out for dinner, the guy he’d been seeing at the time, and told him thanks for everything. Kyle had no hard feelings about it. They both worked in Century City and encountered frequently and had only been out a couple of times. It had been mainly an itch that had needed a little scratching. That same night he left Sean his first voicemail.

“So . . . October then.”

He looked up from their drinks, met Sean’s eyes and nodded. Sean, again, wasn’t looking at him, this time with his eyes on their drinks as well.

Straddled on either side of a cushioned benched, facing each other, their drinks were between them. They were at the Standard Hotel Downtown, and it was a beautiful night. A short distance over down the way was a party at another hotel’s rooftop, from which faux glamor shots from a party photo-booth were being projected on the side of a nearby skyscraper. Black and white billboard style shots of young women and men with overdone facial correction filters, so that everyone looked like an eighties supermodel. It was very cute, seeing the kissy faces and the group hugs and the happy smiles.

On their rooftop, the sounds of the party strobed around them. A small foundation’s fundraiser sponsored by working professionals. A lot like the Thurgood Marshall dinner, but with fog machines and electric red and blue lights and many more drunk midlevel executives. Smartphone LED camera flashes lit them up constantly, reminding him of the ACLU gala when he’d returned so triumphantly with Anne and Wil in tow and the engagement ring he’d had to return to Johnston to realize Sean needed, burning a hole in his pocket. Same feeling minus the light enough to fly confidence of having a set of parents who loved and trusted him just for who he was. It definitely wasn’t the same night. Here there were no parents; only working professionals who’d thrown off the suit jackets they wore all day and were dancing to pop tunes.

They’d forgone a table this time and were a distance from the party, just a shoulder’s width from the rooftop’s wall to take in a crisp, clear night across the city. None of his friends were in attendance since the timing had cut in for anyone working late that evening. Including Elliot Manassian. But Craig had brought Sean and had even stayed a little before heading off. He couldn’t believe how great Craig was being.

Overall it was a safe enough function and their marked distance from the dance floor created a large enough lake that anyone wanting to approach would have to overcome a lot of blatancy to do so.

He was trying to read Sean’s thoughts on Sean’s face.

“And when’d you start seeing him?” Sean asked. About Kyle.

“You left in August, so Kyle was around mid-September.” 

To which Sean said nothing, leaving him wondering why Sean wanted to know. Stoking fears he’d started carrying since KV’s party—that Sean was not only keeping track of faces but was also keeping a personal timeline of his own that needed clarifying. And he couldn’t imagine what for. He kept looking at Sean, but as long as he was telling his story, Sean seemed never to be looking at him. It was so embarrassing, so difficult.

“So . . . you really didn’t think of me at at?” Sean slowly asked. “Even with all my texts?”

He was quiet, letting his emotions pass at the hurt in Sean’s voice. A hurt he knew Sean was trying to minimize. But if at the point if he couldn’t hear pain in Sean’s voice, he’d been asleep for four years. And he certainly hadn’t.

“I thought of you every day,” he told him. “What I stopped doing was thinking your name. I stopped saying it in my head.” And alone, in bed, unable to sleep and seeking relief from memories, he’d just stopped. What good would it have done?

He shook his head, at the idiocy of how he used to be. “It was just a trick for my mind. And it couldn’t withstand a reality check.”

Sean seemed to be thinking on his words. “So you left me voicemail.”

He nodded. That first period talking over the phone had been like . . . finally, he had taken that bungee jump, but off the highest cliff on Earth, so that the high of the exhilaration seemed to last a mini lifetime. Pure delight. Totally joy. Too exciting and almost too sweet to bear. 

Because as thrilling as it had been leaving Sean that first teasing voicemail; easy, casual, because he was just saying hi, right, not proposing marriage— _Hey, big guy. You’re never gonna believe this, but I just saw you on TV . . . are you famous or something?_ —it was on getting Sean’s text back, _Can I call you??_ that things subtly, but truly changed.

 _Sure,_ he’d texted back, giving a time that night.

Sean had called and they had talked. God, how they had talked. Nothing could have been sweeter, sexier, more head-spinning. He hadn’t laughed like that in months. Hearing himself laughing like in high school, lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling and saying stupid things, feeling foolish and full of secrets. And then quieting and listening to every inhalation, every exhalation, the way Sean Jackson missed him, like being pushed into, or up against a wall, handled so hard under slippery soap and a stone bathroom wall that he’d have trouble remembering what day it was afterward. It was all there over the phone. Every quiet sigh regretting their distance. Every extended silence, as if they were recreating worlds in that time. Could he call him again sometime? _I’ll text first._ “Of course,” he’d answered. _Okay,_ Sean had said. _Okay. I love you, Holden._

And all he was hearing was a concession, hard won and marking his victory. He would get no calls unless he sent his approval by text or called himself. Alastair Wilson would have been proud.

And reentering the real world any morning following, everything would seem intensely brighter. Smiling at pretty much everyone, he’d ask them what was up. He had a secret and it made him feel untouchable inside. He would go dancing with Petey, make Elliot laugh, and party with Craig, who’d take one look at his smiling face and drop certain types of invites on his desk.

About a month after, around ending of November, he met Jacob from the governor’s liaison office.

Condescending Jacob, as he now thought of him following Elliot’s spot on descriptor of Neil. Jacob who’d left his card with so much insult at Blake’s, an action he’d done nothing to warrant. They met at the home of a family friend raising campaign money for a politician. Jacob was charming and showed apparent kindness, which, when even a little challenged had clarified itself as just basic condescension.

But in their initial meeting, it was safe to say that Jacob had triggered his feelings for Sean. Not even acknowledging that he was missing Sean, standing next to Jacob and hearing his spare, rare remarks on particular things, he’d laugh, and they seemed to mirror him and Sean in this, his world. And he had turned to Jacob one evening and smiled at him, feeling as though he had slipped and falling into a bottomless abyss.

From habit, from upbringing, he thought that meant he was feeling for Jacob something he’d felt for Sean. Not knowing or understanding the concept of emotional transference.

So one evening he took Jacob home and started kissing him. And pretended it was Sean.

It was the first time he’d ever done anything like it and he would never be proud of it. But the fact remained that he had done it. And frankly, compared to what was to come, it had been thoroughly innocent. Kissed Jacob’s neck, mouth, cheeks, along his jaw, pretending all the while there was a beard there he loved. Touched him the way—

Self-conscious, suddenly hearing himself, he paused and glanced at Sean. 

Sean was watching him. His pale eyes still. “The way what?”

“The way I knew you liked.” Done heedless of what Jacob might have liked. Who even knew what Jacob had been into. Forging ahead, he said, “It was electrifying. I can’t even tell you what it felt like. What it was—” he blinked a few times, almost feeling his eyes cross while he stared his drink. And decided telling Sean absolutely every gritty detail might not be the most prudent path. “So— I spent the next couple of months—”

But he stopped again. “Sean, are you sure you want to hear this?”

“No but I think I need to.”

Okay . . . not the most encouraging thing he’d ever heard.

“Sean— you know I used to be a very different person. Right?”

“It’s fine,” Sean quietly, eyes still down. “Go on.”

“Sean—”

“Holden, just get on with it.”

Nodding, he closed his eyes and inhaled long. Opening his eyes, instead of anger or frustration, Sean flicked him a mostly contrite look, shaking his head as if in apology, but said nothing at all.

He understood. And continued. 

“I spent the next couple of months until you came back in January essentially using Jacob as a surrogate. He’s one of those people who feels they know what’s going on with you and would happily explain it to you. So I let him. He liked the way I touched him. The way we made love.” 

He stop, staring at his hand trembling. Who could have convinced him he would be trembling talking to a guy. But he was fast losing his courage. But Sean remained silent. Finally he stammered, “I— I’m sorry— but— you—”

And again he stopped. But this time, he knew, for the last time. Sean was under no obligation to make him feel comfortable about anything he was saying. Tonight, and the nights before and to come, he was merely narrating things Sean had had to live. And knowing enough of it, Sean had returned to him. And still loved him. All Sean asked of him now was that he _say_ what had happened.

A whiskey soda was what he had ordered. Sean had a order some sort of Japanese rice liquor thing that apparently wasn’t actually alcoholic. They hadn’t touched their drinks. But now he picked his up and sipped it all down, wishing he’d skipped the soda.

“Jacob used to say that the way I was with him was so much more than he’d excepted,” he continued. “That it felt so . . . intimate.” He shook his head. “Who even knew what he was into. He might as well have been invisible for all I knew. It was all so shallow. But you and I . . . we were talking.” They would wind each other up so tight.

“You remember?” he now asked Sean, who nodded.

He’d give Sean a time and Sean would call, and over the phone he’d feel the warmth between them increasing. And he would continue using Jacob, like practice.

“All that mattered was that I would remain in control. Of myself and him. And I just thought I was getting better at handling what was happening between us.”

Sean was looking away now, his gaze out across the bright cityscape. And he was seeing all the questions Sean couldn’t make himself ask, but which he would have to find answers to. If not to night, then later. 

Sean said nothing for a long time, while they both listened to Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach.

After a long while Sean said, “What’d you do for Thanksgiving and Christmas that year?”

He shrugged. “Spent in Bel Air. Some of the families have dinners and I sometimes join my parents in attending. Most New Year’s though I spend with Elliot. The year we met was no different. You?” Searching Sean’s face for a way in, he said, “Allison told me everyone would pack up and show up wherever you had holiday games. That sounds like a blast.”

“Used to be.”

He nodded, lowering his gaze against the pain cork screwing into him. Used to be, but now sounded like it hadn’t been for a while. Maybe for about three years.

“New Year’s though, I’d sleep off,” Sean continued. “Never really felt I had anything to ring in. You know. Same stuff, different year.”

He continued nodding, knowing Sean was just keeping the conversation on rails. Making it easy for him to get where they both needed him to reach.

Because Sean returning to LA that following January hadn’t been _same stuff, different year._ Things had in fact become very different.

*

 

_Next up: The Boy You Love II . . . how to successfully date Holden Wilson. ;) Coming before you know it!_


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